The Community Action Network (CAN) aims to increase civic engagement for those most disadvantaged or excluded. CAN provides leadership development for people in poverty through a facilitated and structured training series providing transferable skills to participants, promoting resiliency and empowered, involvement in anti- poverty advocacy, focusing specifically on skills for those who will engage as public spokespeople. Connecting personal experiences to structural issues through targeted training, participants will come out of the initiative with confidence, skills and ongoing support to provide media commentary, give public presentations, engage in consultation processes with government and other decision makers, and more!
The process will be focused on community benefit through positively impacting participants and providing strength to the poverty reduction movement. The CAN learning continuum is framed around charity to justice, a human rights approach to ending poverty, and the need for upstream change versus the need for an entrenched ‘downstream’ charitable response.
Program Features
● Focus on public speaking and media spokesperson skills for activists.
● Info on the root causes of poverty plus overview and intro to provincial anti-poverty advocacy of the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition.
● Opportunity to explore possibilities to impact change with your story.
● Participation focused program; many opportunities to share, listen and bring your
ideas, thoughts and experiences to the program + discuss a wide array of issues
impacting your and your community.
● Focus on public speaking and organizing skills for advocates and people who
want to impact change for their communities, on the issues that matter to them.
● Info on the root causes of poverty plus, human rights frameworks, laws that create policy, how to change ‘stigma’ around poverty.
What are the entrance requirements?
● Ability to commit to the entire program is important.
● Applications are open to those who have experienced poverty.
● 12-15 spaces available: spots filled at the discretion of PRC staff.
● No previous education or training required.
● CAN will be offered in English. ASL interpreters can be available.
The PRC is pleased to announce a Black Leadership CAN Program for Spring 2023! View the workshop schedule here.
The PRC is explicitly committed to supporting the capacity and leadership of those with lived and living experience of poverty in all we do. We recognize the deep and specific impacts of poverty and systemic racism on the Black community across the lower mainland. With this program, we aim to support the development of Black and racialized leadership for change in the progressive advocacy sector.
Our amazing facilitators will be Lama Mugabo, a Rwandan former refugee, educator and community organizer is our Community Action Network Manager, and Chanelle Tye, an equity and inclusion facilitator, educator, and coach who specializes in the areas of anti-racism and LGBTQ2SIA+ inclusion.
This program is a special edition of our CAN Leadership Training Program, with a targeted audience to increase equity into Leadership spaces for Black folks in Vancouver and the lower mainland. The program will launch during Black History Month and will consist of 7 weekly, half-day workshops held throughout February & March 2023. Program sessions will typically feature a guest speaker, as well as group activities and a shared hot meal. We aim to ensure accessible programs by offering childcare stipends, bus tickets, and ASL interpretation as required. This is a low literacy level course, with no reading or writing requirements. If you identify as a Black person living in the lower mainland, and have lived/living experiences of poverty or homelessness, please contact lama@bcpovertyreduction.ca for more information.
CAN NEW Westminster 2022.
We ran the CAN program in New Westminster this spring in partnership with the City of New Westminster. Congratulations to our eight phenomenal graduates!
CAN kelowna 2022.
The Community Action Network Leadership Development Program will run in Kelowna in 2022, thanks to the support of the Central Okanagan Foundation. The program will run October-December!