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Peterborough effort aims to support residents to develop the language, tools and confidence to participate in neighbourhood planning processes
Wednesday August 22, 2018
An initiative in Peterborough, Ontario is dedicated to finding ways to tap the lived experiences and local knowledge of residents. The idea is to add what they come up with to the expert knowledge of planners, engineers and other professionals through a process known as participatory planning.
The initiative, called NeighbourPLAN, is spearheaded by a local organization, GreenUP, which focuses on issues of environmental education, sustainability and stewardship. NeighbourPLAN aims to support residents to develop the language, tools and confidence to participate in neighbourhood planning processes.
Several jurisdictions have started initiatives to help create communities where people have clear paths for connecting
Thursday August 16, 2018
When Karen Wilk learned that fellow Edmonton resident, Howard Lawrence, had connected with city government and that the municipality had agreed to support a pilot project based on the principles found in the book, Abundant Community, she was “in.” “In,” as in she wanted to find a way to actively support this refreshing, new initiative.
Why the recommissioning of a sacred space in Peterborough, Ontario 'for the sake of the commons' is a very big deal
Thursday August 9, 2018
At the very end of McDonnel St. in Peterborough, Ontario is a gateway to a different way of life, past and future.
For years, St. Joseph’s at The Mount was home to a religious life. From there emanated many community works. Women who chose a life in the world but not of the world served community in the streets and at the head of substantial organizations. Their home for 90 some years became a place imbued with a legacy of faith, spirit, and service.
Now, as you pass through that same gateway and meander up the winding road, what unfolds for you to see is a 131,000 square foot building on ten acres of land just up the creek from centre of town.
Councils beginning to spread as governments support and fund them
Monday July 30, 2018
From determining how best to receive refugees to reviewing a large urban development project, Wisdom Councils offer a unique way to engage the insights of citizens on local, regional or state issues.
First used in 2006 in the Austrian city of Wolfurt, Wisdom Councils now take place primarily in Vorarlberg state, Austria, though they have also been held in other places in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Dr. Lindsey Nicole Godwin reflects on the recent World Positive Education Accelerator
Monday July 23, 2018
In considering the broad topic of reimagining democracy, the element of education is absolutely vital. “What happens in our school systems is a result of a demand by large systems for numerate and literate workers more than 150 years ago,” writes Axiom News founder and CEO Peter Pula. “That we still educate that way is atrocious. Schools too can to be reimagined and integrated into community life in much richer ways.”
Practical, meaningful skills and new perspectives gleaned on the side of city-building experiment
Wednesday July 18, 2018
While the cofounders of a unique city-building effort in Vancouver talk about its big and far-reaching possibilities, two students who took part in it have a lot to say about what it has done for them in small, deep and lingering ways. They say they walked away with a bolstered sense of confidence in themselves, in a certain set of skills and in a particular way of relating to people around them.
Vancouver one of 7 cities reclaiming education through learning that builds a city
Tuesday July 10, 2018
The level of cognitive, energetic and creative surplus that is unleashed when undergrad students are asked to help build their cities has happily astounded Duane Elverum. It’s also swelled his sense of urgency around shaping the conditions to spur this unleashing more and more.
“I feel a vibration. My heart beats faster, my hands start to sweat, when I think about how do we move faster, how do we get this going, how do we put this on the big wheel so to speak,” Duane tells Axiom News.
Seven years ago Duane launched CityStudio Vancouver with his colleague and fellow Simon Fraser University professor, Janet Moore. In very simple terms, the studio matches universities’ capacity with civic needs. Besides activating the unleashing mentioned above, the studio is shrinking the gap between higher learning and municipal government. It also represents a new way of distributing problems.
The growing hum of citizen-led community building
Tuesday July 3, 2018
A bold match-making project in Vancouver peels away the mist on what’s possible for creating our preferred future as a society. Pairing universities’ capacities with civic needs, City Studio Vancouver unleashes cognitive and creative surplus in students that see their energies making the city better.
“In the past, the problems we have in society have typically been given to some experts or some narrow groups to solve,” says City Studio Vancouver co-founder Duane Elverum. “They really are not distributed to the demos or the democracy in very effective ways, other than voting.”
But that’s changing. A new and more effective way to distribute societal problems might soon be called a global movement.
Spring, 2018 events show uptick in activity around employee ownership
Friday June 22, 2018
The story of how employee ownership saved a B.C. mill company from shut down offers just one compelling glimpse of what’s possible in a business model some say is still too much of a secret.
From the villages of Pakistan to the social service industry of Calgary, one quiet radical has been saying ‘no’ to disparity and ‘yes’ to invitation all her life
Thursday November 30, 2017
As a child growing up in the town of Shabqadar Fort of the Pakistan province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Noreen Mahmood noticed how classmates from certain religious minorities were shunned. People from what she calls “the mainstream groups” never even liked to be touched by these girls. Though a “mainstreamer” herself, Noreen established herself very early on as a kind of quiet radical. She refused to follow the ways of her own people and deliberately intermingled with these girls.
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