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The Building Welcoming and Inclusive Neighbourhood Project (BWIN) was possible because of a section in the National Immigrant Act that talks about two way integration between newcomers and long term residents. Once the leaders in neighbourhood houses became aware of this wording in the Immigration Act, they developed a position paper that highlighted how neighbourhood houses welcomed and included newcomers into their local communities. Up to that point almost all Settlement funding was targeted only to the newcomers. Long term residents were not counted as participants in newcomers integration process. The Project was championed by the Director of the Settlement Branch at the, who managed to do a direct award for Metro Vancouver Neighbourhood Houses (NHs), making the case that they were best positioned to undertake this work. The project would build upon the work that NHs were already doing to integrate newcomers into their communities. The Province was interested in this approach and wanted to know if it could be used in other parts of the province. This was one project of many that the Settlement Department initiated under the Welcoming Communities Initiative, that sparked innovative approaches of facilitating two way integration and welcoming and inclusive practices. 2
1. The Immigrant Serving Agencies in Metro Vancouver have always been the major players working with newcomers. Building Welcoming and Inclusive Neighbourhoods (BWIN) offered a great opportunity to expand our role. Since BWIN, NHs are routinely included at Immigrant planning tables, and are recognized for how well we integrate newcomers into our local neighbourhoods. 4. Several of the initiatives involved building the capacity of the participants by tapping into their strengths. Newcomers and long term residents were trained as facilitators in dialogue circles and participants shared their experiences at public forums. 5. BWIN greatly enhanced the collaboration between the NHs. As place based organizations, we initiated, and are involved in, numerous local collaborations with organizations, businesses, etc., but BWIN enhanced collaboration and sharing best practices between the 14 NHs in Metro Vancouver, both at the Senior and front line levels. We also began to articulate shared values and approaches to engaging community members and creating a more welcoming and inclusive neighbourhood. 6. We developed a communication plan that branded our work, that has since been used for promoting NHs at Neighbourhood House Week and on an ongoing basis. The plan highlights the place based approach to building welcoming and inclusive neighbourhoods. 3
We recognized right away that NHs all had different capacities and were at different stages in our work with newcomers and doing community development/engagement, so a cookie cutter approach wouldn t work. For some NHs, they used the funding to enhance some of the work they were already doing. For instance, one NH built on their already established food security initiatives ( community gardens, food mapping), but used the two way integration focus and lens to enhance newcomer engagement. For those that hadn t had any Settlement monies before, it was a very intentional foray into attracting immigrants into their NHs, and beginning the important dialogues about the newcomers active participation in the NH and in the community. Some focused more on cultural competency, while others on leadership development. 4
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The collaborative research project to study the impact of NH s place based approach reviewed the literature on the BWIN project and identified 4 essential components to Building Welcoming and Inclusive Neighbourhoods. - These findings aligned with the comprehensive survey conducted by the Vancouver Foundation in 2012 titled Connections and Engagement in that one of their key issues that emerged was that many residents in Metro Vancouver feel they are disconnected from their neighbours, especially with those from different cultural groups. 7
The NHs include people from many different cultures, abilities, lifestyles and socioeconomic backgrounds. We tried to ensure that the environment was safe and that everyone felt included and respected. The project encouraged people to share their personal experiences and not sugar coat them. We encouraged heartful speaking and deep listening. 8
We celebrate the diversity in our communities. While we recognize and honour the cultural differences of our participants, we value the common humanity that every person shares. 9
This reverberated throughout the organization. Questions were raised about how welcoming and inclusive all our programs were. Promotions, outreach, hiring practices were reviewed with this lens. NHs broadened the diversity discussion to extend beyond cultural diversity. When one opens up to the idea that people come from diverse backgrounds, it is not just cultural differences. Our steering committee had many different perspectives about how we work together, how to make decisions, what the key messages in our communication plan would be, etc. As co chair of the BWIN steering committee, my colleague and I ensured that all perspectives were respected, and that we worked towards consensus and agreed to consider all perspectives. 10
There was a need to be diligent about encouraging intercultural activities and civic engagement beyond the neighbourhood house doors. It is easier to connect with people from similar backgrounds, but we would model curiosity and inclusion and support active participation in different aspects of community life such as Neighbourhood Small Grants Project, meetings about local issues, arts and cultural events and volunteering in your neighbourhood. A eye to both identify and foster leadership occurred in most NHs. These leaders from the newcomer communities were excellent role models, as they encouraged others from their community to get involved. 11
Before BWIN, NHs thought that we were culturally competent because we had staff and volunteers from many different cultures. But when we didn t promote intercultural interaction and separated the cultural groups for ease of communication and connection, we were, at times,reinforcing stereotypes and separation. The idea of two way integration meant that it wasn t just the newcomers that had to learn how to integrate into Canadian society but that long term residents needed to learn and understand the newcomers and their reality. 12
Time limited funding BWIN significantly built NH s capacity to create more welcoming and inclusive neighbourhoods. The six years of funding helped embed the work into our everyday work, but without this additional funding resources for this work are constantly stretched, as much of the other funding that NHs have secured is targeted and restricted to specific populations and specific work. Measuring Outcomes The funder was very interested in measuring the specific impacts that resulted from their dollars. Since in many cases we were enhancing current activities or leveraging other funding, it was very difficult to pull out the specific impacts from their specific contribution. As the co chair of the BWIN Steering Committee, we tried to explain to the government the collective impact of multiple funders and multiple approaches to support two way integration. The government, in turn worked with us to be more specific in what we would measure, and what information every NH could effectively measure. This was by no means a smooth process, especially with personnel changing all the time. Reporting some of the key findings you re hearing about in this presentation gave both some quantitative and qualitative results of the BWIN project. However, it really is the specific stories of individual participants that resonated with the government representatives more, so we encouraged the coordinators to capture those stories whenever possible and add them to the reports. 13
For some NHs, they used the funding to enhance some of the work they were already doing, for instance build on their already established food security initiatives but use the two way integration focus and lens to enhance newcomer engagement in these initiatives. For those that hadn t had any Settlement monies before, it was a very intentional foray into attracting immigrants into their NHs, and beginning the important dialogues about the newcomers active participation in the NH and in the community. Some focused more on cultural competency, while others on leadership development. Although both the concept and philosophy were very much aligned with what NHs were already doing in their local community, the extra resources and intentional focus on deepening the dialogue and understanding between newcomers and long term residents had a significant positive impact in our NHs and in our neighbourhoods. 14