(RE)connect - Making and Keeping Community Essential

When Heather Keam and I first spoke about reconnect, and she shared the title with me, my response was that it felt like Nova Scotians have been in having a version of the conversation about community being essential since at least October 2020 (if not much earlier) *see lessons, and aftermath, of Hurricane Juan and White Juan, also #communityresilience in #emergencypreparedness.

Heather shared stories of what Tamarack was hearing from across Canada, and it was a great reminder for me, that place/context matters. Across Canada, and the globe, we are seeing and feeling the pandemic effects differently from place to place.

Zita Cobb spoke about community as the unit of change during #AoCB2021, that has stayed with me through these past weeks as I turn my attention to Tamarack's reconnect.  A need to repair social disconnection, strengthen collective action by civil society, rebuild relationships at the local/neighbourhood level and explore community-centred municipal planning also came up at #SEWF2021.

I am keen and eager to listen to what the exciting line up of speakers have to share. Several members of the Inspiring Communities** team will be attending and I cannot wait for how we will integrate what we learn into our work.

I also want to learn what is coming up for participants (in their various local contexts) about how we can make and keep community essential.

We are down to 4 days before the event! Join Lori Hewson and I on Oct 6 & 7 for what promises to be an engaging, thoughtful perhaps provocative but certainly inspiring event :-)

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**Inspiring Communities is a non-profit organization working to build collaborative relationships for social change and supporting the growth and vitality of the field of systems change in Atlantic Canada.