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Tag: Education

Community Engagement Option: 8th Year of Partnership with Laurier

Students participating in the Community Engagement Option are once again being welcomed into Downtown Kitchener.  This immersive and cross-disciplinary educational journey is delivered jointly by The Working Centre and Laurier, and brings a diverse range of community voices into the classroom. The option, now in its 8th year, continues to offer students insights into key community concepts like social inclusion, local democracy, and community enterprise.  

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Access To University (A2U)

By way of introduction let me first say that my role in the A2U program was that of Faculty Liaison. I provided a bridge between the academic and administrative operations of the Faculty of Arts and those of The Working Centre, our community partner. In this role I would regularly meet with colleagues at The Working Centre (Heather, Maru, Gabe, and Stephanie). Together we would troubleshoot the myriad of obstacles that students face when accessing university.  Although I did not get to know each of you as well as your instructors, I did learn of the diversity of your life experiences, your challenges, and your achievements. It was always an interesting, and often moving role.

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Reflections from an A2U Graduate

It is an honour and a delight to address you all today. My time at Laurier through A2U has been very personally transformative… however, it is a considerable challenge to speak on behalf of all the cohorts of our program since we are an extremely diverse group.

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Humanities101: Access to University Learning

Education occurs always and everywhere. Each time we encounter something, we learn and are changed, even in the smallest way, changed by the impact of that encounter. When education becomes intentional, it is as if the change is being embraced, paths cleared to accommodate the change.

The exciting thing about The Working Centre’s Local Democracy Diploma is that the change that is embraced is personal, and also about your neighborhood and your community. It is about this world we share.

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The Story of the First Rohingya Language School

Sometimes small groups working together, both in and around The Working Centre, burst beyond the borders of The Working Centre’s beehive buzz into places of teaching and learning all over town. Special moments in such small groups remind us exactly what structures of aliveness can feel like. I call these “inside out” structures, where atmosphere and feeling precedes a clear plan.

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Waterloo Region ASSETS Project

In 2004 members of the Waterloo chapter of MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Association) met with The Working Centre to identify a way to help people develop the skills needed for starting their own business. A feasibility study identified the need for training for people who may not fit the criteria of government sponsored initiatives. In particular the study noted the importance of training for middle-aged workers, women and New Canadians.

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The Gift of Developing Potential in Others

Tonight we focus on the field of education & child development by shining a light on the contributions of Lynda Silvester, who in her volunteer and professional roles as educator, co-founder of the remarkable children’s literacy program, Strong Start, and community volunteer has dedicated her life to building a community in which all of our children are supported and encouraged to reach their full potential.

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Lynda Silvester – Helping Kids Get a Strong, Smart Start

“Embrace the change and enjoy the learning.” Those are words that Lynda Silvester has lived by throughout her career. As an educator, she has been active for decades helping children to learn, through many changes in school systems, curriculum, resource levels, parental expectations and societal demands. There’s one constant among all that change, though: Kids want to learn, and with the right help, they can.

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In a Democracy Citizenship Means More than Voting

The Diploma in Local Democracy project has completed two sessions involving 35 participants over the last two years. The course focused on the practice of local democracy as perceived and experienced by the participants.

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The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.

This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.

In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.