Page 28 - Walking_The_Red_Road

4
draws on existing relationships, programs, and services, and strengthens them.
Serving as a comfortable and familiar gathering place, the North Bay Indian Friendship Centre strives to improve quality of life for its urban Aboriginal community members. Offering over 30 programs and holding regular community events and feasts, the Friendship Centre provided the research team with a comfortable home and a nurturing family. In turn, the relationships and activities built through the project extended the Friendship Centre’s reach, raising its profile and helping to strengthen and build new relationships.
Early on we recognized that the Friendship Centre would support and strengthen the work of the project because it offered ready-made relationships with service providers, clients, volunteers, board members, partners, community Elders, etc. On a practical level, it offered in-house advice, guidance and administrative support.
When it came to engaging with the community, on
the one hand, being based in the Friendship Centre also meant that our meetings and activities could
take place in a familiar and trusted space, already dedicated to supporting Aboriginal life in an urban community context and strongly linked with other Aboriginal services, both on and off-reserve. On
the other hand, for community members coming to participate in our research, events and activities,
and for service providers and others participating
in our CAC, the project was what drew them into the Friendship Centre, many for the first time. For example, over 50% of our housing and homelessness research participants shared that coming for their interviews was their first time visiting the Centre. There were
also participants who shared they had not visited
the centre for many years, and our project brought them back. Others said they had heard of the project through other organizations, both Aboriginal and non- aboriginal, and felt comfortable coming to the Centre, because of these ‘links.’ Similarly, our Labour Market Series increased the “foot traffic” into the Centre, and
Project hub in well-known Aboriginal community resource
The “True Self - Debwewendizwin” Program has the partnerships and that is what I found, because I would have not been in a healthy place today, had I not been to this program to keep my head above water through these issues I have had to face in the past year and a half. So they have hooked me in with all the necessary people, otherwise, I probably would have sunk.
Participant
If you are not related to any existing service because you
are new in town, it is hard
to get in for an assessment. The attending physician is a gate keeper, and if they think you are not bad enough, you will have no access. How do you support access for these people?
Participant
Walking the Red Road | REPORT OF THE URBAN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES THRIVE PROJECT
| 28
,,