UBC Awards Over $700,000 to 30 Community-University Partnerships Through the 2023-24 Community-University Engagement Support Fund

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

This project aims to increase Accessibility and Disability Justice (ADJ) competency at UBC Okanagan and City of Kelowna. With the implementation of the Accessible BC Act, both organizations are required to make significant progress in ADJ, and a critical initial step is addressing the identified lack of competency in this area in both institutions.  

The UBCO partners, Dr. Jannik Eikenaar and Kathryn Douglas-Campbell, have engaged with the Disability community at UBC to create ADJ learning outcomes and content that the City of Kelowna is keen to pilot, review, and fully launch as an open-access learning resource comprised of asynchronous and synchronous/facilitated learning sessions.   

The City of Kelowna is committed to fulfilling the Accessible BC Act. A key component of that commitment will include the deep need for educational resources developed in connection with the Disability community. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

This project is a pilot project to explore developing an Indigenous community based feral horse stewardship plan which supports snk?caska´xa (Syilx wild horses) as tmix? (part of all living things).   

The reserve has a population of horses living wild in range areas, who have a unique and culturally important relationship to Syilx community members and the land. However, stewarding these horses in a good way poses some challenges. These include maintaining a healthy, ecologically sustainable population, horses straying onto roads and the absence of a feral horse stewardship strategy. The community partner, For the Ferals Wild Horse Society (FtF), is an Okanagan Indian Band (OKIB) Reserve based Indigenous non-profit which emerged to care for the ferals. This project is based on supporting this grassroots, Indigenous women led community organization in developing capacity and working with community knowledge holders to meet key objectives, including developing a community stewardship plan, determining healthy herd size and identifying community stewardship priorities.  

This project will be supported by the YEEHAH (Youth Elders Ecology Horses and Health) project, a wider Syilx horse culture wellness project lead by Syilx Faculty. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Kingdom Acts Foundation’s project, “Assessing and Enhancing Food Security Among New Immigrants: A Community-Engaged Approach,” aims to address the crucial issue of food security in new black African immigrant communities. The project’s primary objectives include mapping the food security landscape, developing community-informed, evidence-based interventions, and guiding policy recommendations to create sustainable solutions for these communities. To this end, we employ the Participatory Action Research methods and qualitative data collection tools, including collaboration with African immigrant community-based organizations to investigate and proffer solutions to the challenges and barriers they encounter in accessing local food systems and securing culturally specific foods. A key element of this undertaking involves the integration of cultural viewpoints, facilitated by sustained engagement and feedback obtained from community forums. The adopted approach ensures a holistic understanding of the diverse needs and challenges experienced by these new immigrants concerning food security. Kingdom Acts Foundation is unwavering in its dedication to understanding and actively improving new immigrants’ food security and well-being. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

This project brings together a UBC community-based research team and AIDS Vancouver, an HIV/AIDS Service Organization, to create space (both physical and virtual) to learn, reflect, and connect around healthy aging topics for women. BCC3 (British Columbia CARMA-CHIWOS Collaboration) is a community-based study of healthy aging in women =16y living with and without HIV in BC. With AIDS Vancouver, which has supported the HIV community since 1983, we will go beyond traditional communication of research findings and give back individualized actionable research results to women in a meaningful way. We will organize several Knowledge Transfer events at AIDS Vancouver and virtually, where women participating in BCC3 will receive their own personal results (4-5 results) to inform their aging journey. The events will be open to all women living with HIV, and will be student- and community-led, accompanied by a meal, take-home material (lay language information booklet), a gift card, and will provide space to learn and reflect on the information shared. The booklets will include the context needed to understand the results shared, and tips about how to talk to a healthcare provider about each topic.

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Researchers with UBC are investigating healthy aging in women with HIV, from cell-to-society, in the community-based British Columbia CARMA-CHIWOS Collaboration (BCC3). Afro-Canadian Positive Network (ACP-Net) is a non-profit organization that has supported newcomer women in British Columbia since 2009, and has worked with the BCC3 study since its creation in 2019. Together, we are working to ensure research involving women with HIV is reflective of the broad array of women with HIV in BC. Herein, we aim to engage women with HIV who speak English as an additional language, through a community meeting to learn how we can improve their access to research initiatives and outputs. We will then translate study materials into 3 additional languages based upon those which are felt by the community to be most impactful to women. We will employ women who speak those languages to trial/validate the translated materials before using them in our study. Knowledge translation materials will also be translated and we will host a unique event whereby these materials will be presented to women participants in these languages as well as English. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Caregivers of disabled and/or neurodivergent children benefit from programs to support their mental health and well-being. Despite this, there is a lack of robust, integrated mental health supports available through public health and social services. BC Centre for Ability (BCCFA) has partnered with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) to pilot the delivery of an evidence-based group program that targets caregiver well-being. The program, based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been co-designed and is co-delivered by family caregivers and clinicians. One Social Worker and one parent-caregiver received training from CAMH and have piloted the program with three groups of caregivers from BCCFA.   

This project would support us to scale up the program by:   

1. Training additional facilitators   

2. Providing compensation for caregiver facilitation time   

3. Piloting different delivery models to assess the uptake and best fit for the community served   

4. Identifying barriers and facilitators to participation   

5. Evaluating the feasibility and sustainability of embedding and scaling up a caregiver-clinician partnership model of service delivery at BCCFA and other Child Development Centers in B.C. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

This project aims to generate actionable community-driven recommendations to improve health care for youth and people precariously housed or homeless in BC’s northern region of Terrace and build community capacity for leadership in health system reform. Northern and remote communities face serious inequities in accessible health care; a situation known as place-based health care disparities. Youth, Indigenous and homeless people are disproportionately affected. While it is well known that initiatives informed by community strengths and perspectives have greater likelihood of success and sustainability, Terrace has had minimal community engagement about health care disparities. Terrace Women’s Resource Centre Society (TWRCS) is a front-line organization serving diverse individuals and families; while also providing health care referral and navigation support. As a recognized community leader and health equity advocate, TWRCS will work with the Capacity Research Unit to engage their community partners, create and implement an inclusive community consultation strategy, develop a greater understanding of the local context of health care and create next steps for health care improvement. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Disability and Hospice & Palliative Care (HPC) form two distinct and complex ecosystems in BC. This complexity and lack of coordination within and across each ecosystem, pose several challenges to supporting individuals affected by Neuro-Behavioural and Developmental Complexity (NBDC) to live and die with dignity. Existing challenges include:  

1. Unpredictable HPC needs 

2. Lack of flexibility in transitions from home to hospice 

3. Systemic gaps for children transitioning to adult services 

To work better together toward a future in BC where individuals affected by NBDC are better supported to live and die with dignity, we will form a “Community of Practice” (CoP) to build connection and trust among innovators and champions who can affect meaningful change. The network is intended to enhance KTE and collaboration across the Disability Care and HPC systems in BC, and to develop and implement innovative initiatives and action plans that enable a better death for those with profound NBDC. The CoP will create an information hub on HPC services within the Disability Care system, training programs for service providers, and advanced care planning for persons with NBDC and their carers to express their end-of-life wishes. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Substance use disorder is a growing chronic disease in Canada, with increasing harms. Racialized South Asian (SA) men living in the Lower Mainland have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to the harms of alcohol and opioid use, with many struggling to access support due to a variety of systemic and intrinsic barriers. Ensuring that research users are engaged as equal partners alongside researchers, the team will have shared leadership between SA men who use substances, health service providers, community organization representatives, and researchers. The goal of the project is to design an evidence-informed, culturally resonant intervention to support SA men who use substances, as well as identify next steps for further research and study of culturally resonant interventions. This will be completed during 5 collaborative meetings between the team and various stakeholders, guided by an experienced facilitator who will use an anti-racist approach to facilitation. Overall, this initiative will produce a culturally resonant intervention designed by researchers and research users, and an agenda for future research that embodies anti-racist ideas and centres the experiences and ideas of SA men who use(d) substances. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

K’ómoks First Nation (KFN) has been stewarding, managing and using herring and salmon resources for millennia. Recent commercial fishing, regulatory restrictions, ecological impacts and dam construction have significantly negatively impacted our ability to access these traditional staples. In this project, we will partner with UBC researchers to explore the long-term history and socio-ecological impacts of these activities on herring and salmon populations. We will pair traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and archeological data to document our past Indigenous fisheries and environmental stewardship, addressing KFN’s archaeological data sovereignty goals. Through community consultation, exchange visits, and knowledge-exchange workshops, we will encourage respectful and reciprocal relationships, and integrate Indigenous and ‘western’ science to explore the past, present and future of Indigenous fisheries. Together, we will design a collaborative research project addressing KFN’s questions regarding the loss of specific runs or populations of salmon and herring that can be used to support our ongoing Aboriginal rights and title negotiations. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Water is central to salmon, whales and people, and yet pollution from human activities degrades its quality and threatens the health of fish and wildlife. We propose to study, share and interpret the health of False Creek (Vancouver BC) waters in support of the nascent False Creek Conservation Council (FC3). We will work with Dr. Ryan Ziels at UBC Civil Engineering and UBC students on this heavily urbanized – but much valued – watershed. Our project will draw from our newly-launched Healthy Waters program at Raincoast Conservation Foundation. Our project will convene First Nations, community members and experts in a series of applied workshops featuring three themes:  

1. Concerns, values and aspirations 

2. State of knowledge review 

3. Innovation around protecting and restoring the health of False Creek 

Our project will also feature applied training sessions on measuring water properties, sampling water for contaminant analyses, and strategies to identify sources of pollutants within the terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments of False Creek. Our goal is to train interested community and Indigenous stewards to monitor the health of waterways and contribute to protection and restoration activities. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Documentation of T’eqt’aqtnmux (Kanaka Bar) oral histories and Indigenous Knowledge is needed to preserve this information for future generations. Every year knowledge is being lost as Elders pass away.

This knowledge will guide the community’s T’eqt’aqtn Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA). The T’eqt’aqtn IPCA is an innovative approach to stewarding lands that has the potential to be the first one to be formally recognized in BC. The IPCA needs a management plan, and that plan will need to be informed by oral history, archaeology/historic data, and T’eqt’aqtnmux principles.

The Kanaka Bar Lands Department will collaborate with UBC’s Faculty of Forestry to comprehensively document community stories and information about how they use the territory (past/present) to provide the basis for the plan. An important part of this will be building the relationship and understanding with the Faculty of Forestry of how other scientific research will be utilized in the process of preparing that plan (and identifying what those needs will be).

The requested funds are to hire four T’eqt’aqtnmux Elders as research partners, provide honoraria for knowledge holders, and hold workshops with on/off-reserve community members.

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to decades of disability, resulting in decreased health outcomes such as poor quality of life. People with TBI can experience a lack of continuity of care, which further impedes long-term health outcomes. Community brain injury associations provide necessary support for peple with TBI, often providing a form of peer support as part of their program. 

Peer-support for people with TBI is a promising intervention to improve health outcomes after brain injury. Peer-support is a form of mentorship between a person with lived experience of a condition and another person who is new to it. There are some peer-support programs in BC, however, these programs have limited scope, are not offered in all communities, and have limited sustainability. 

Our project aims to understand the implementation barriers and facilitators, and the impact of peer-support on people with a TBI through partnerships with community organisations and people with brain injury. Overall, we hope to create a promising, sustainable intervention for people with diverse needs. 

Implementing sustainable peer-support programs partnered with community organizations can provide a necessary intervention across BC. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Former foster youth in care (FYIC) experience many barriers when accessing education. The overarching aim of this project is to lower the many barriers that confront these learners. The project will accomplish these goals with synchronous and complementary asynchronous components. The heart of this project will be to bring together a community of learners who are currently using the Provincial Tuition Waiver (PTWP) to share common experiences and reveal barriers. This community of learners will also serve as mentors and advise the project team on creating its asynchronous curriculum. FYIC usually have to balance education with many other competing priorities. As such, they will typically begin the planning/application process but have it fall by the wayside. When they decide to pick it back up again, enough time has passed that they have to start at square one again. The asynchronous component of this project will consist of a series of flexible activities that prepare youth for educational success. A record of these activities will allow Aunt Leah’s staff to pick up where the youth left off which is aligned to Aunt Leah’s commitment to providing longitudinal support. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

In 2022, the Government of British Columbia (BC) enacted its commitment to the Accessible British Columbia Act (ABCA) (2021), in which libraries must have responded to regulations in 2023 by striking a committee and establishing an accessibility plan. This community-led partnership between Okanagan Regional Library (ORL) and the Collaborative + Experimental Ethnography Lab (CE2 Lab) at UBC, Okanagan (UBCO) is aimed at using qualitative research to advance the ORL’s capacity to address and respond to accessibility mandates and meet the goals of their accessibility plan through local research that informs their actions. With UBCO researcher, Dr. Fiona P. McDonald, we will produce an open access Accessibility Audit Tool that will provide guidelines for best practices about what it means to create and support accessible libraries by evaluating their current physical spaces, services, and programs. The Accessibility Audit Tool will help libraries set priorities for improvements that align with the mandates of the ABCA, which established a legal framework to identify, remove, and prevent barriers to the full and equal participation of people with disabilities in BC.  

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual (2S/LGBTQIA+) & Indigenous, Black and Persons of Color (IBPOC) experience health disparities not based on their multiple intersections, but due to systems of oppression. These groups are disproportionately burdened with mental & physical health disparities with race, gender & sexual orientation being risk factors for trauma, discrimination, & abuse, specifically in healthcare settings. We will create 2 educational modules using video interactive simulations & real-life healthcare experiences for nursing students, healthcare providers, & the community to learn about 2S/LGBTQIA+ & IBPOC healthcare experiences. The modules will highlight the discrimination, stigma, & other challenges faced by these populations, so that viewers can reflect on ways to provide equitable, culturally safer, & affirming care. As IBPOC & Queer individuals ourselves, we are compelled to seek ways to improve the lives of our own communities & to incorporate youth voices within healthcare services & educational training. Currently, no module of this kind exists within UBCO’s nursing program. This will be an open access resource.  

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

The YMCA of Southern Interior BC (YSIBC) and UBC’s Diabetes Prevention Research Group (DPRG) are working together to reduce rates of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in our community, where rates are higher than the national average. To achieve this goal, we will collaboratively deliver Small Steps for Big Changes (SSBC) to people at risk of T2D by offering it free of charge to YSIBC members. All new members are screened for T2D risk, and those who are at high risk are offered the opportunity to participate in SSBC. The SSBC program includes six, one-on-one counselling sessions to help participants address barriers that prevent them from adhering to healthy diet and exercise habits. While YSIBC provides high quality facilities and services for people, the best fitness expertise and motivational classes aren’t enough to help someone stick with exercise when life gets in the way. Partnering with DPRG allows YSIBC to utilize an evidence-based approach that helps people maintain healthy habits despite personal obstacles that arise. Partnering with the YSIBC allows DPRG to reach the growing number of community members who are at risk of T2D through a trusted program delivery agency. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

This project is a collaboration between the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House (DTESNH), a grassroots community organization promoting food justice in the DTES, and UBC’s Urban Ethnographic Field School (UEFS) co-instructed by UBC Anthropology and Sociology. UEFS teaches community-based methodologies and context-specific social issues through intensive ethnographic research training and volunteer fieldwork placements with community partners. Since 2010, UEFS students have done volunteer and research placements at the DTESNH. DTESNH and UEFS will work together on a Community Cookbook – a collaborative document that showcases: the rich diversity of food heritage and culinary creativity in the DTES; the strategies employed in the community’s fight for food justice; the meaning and power that food carries in fostering community, well-being, and self-determination. UEFS students will act as community-based researchers and support the collection and compilation of stories and recipes from DTESNH’s different food justice programs. This partnership will continue our proud history of collaborations that simultaneously support student learning, community advocacy, knowledge and cultural exchange, and social justice-oriented research. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Cultural forest garden ecosystems in Sts’ailes territory have the potential to be ideal field laboratories for revitalizing ancestral Indigenous forest management to reintroduce traditional food systems that improve soil properties and food security in the Sts’ailes community and throughout British Columbia. The objective is to gain a deeper understanding of Sts’ailes’ historic role in making forest garden systems resilient through studies that integrate Indigenous knowledge and Western scientific evidence. These studies are designed to identify and explain how demonstrably successful traditional land-based strategies functioned and can continue to promote more place-based science within contemporary ecosystem management. This project builds on 2 years of fruitful partnership with co-researchers at Sts’ailes, UBC, and SFU, during which time we undertook preliminary investigations at forest garden locations. Sts’ailes remains committed to working alongside UBC researchers to strengthen the exchanges between Western scientific data and traditional land-based knowledge, particularly by involving community elders in more aspects of the research. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

The Centre for Family Equity’s (CFE) annual listening community engagement campaign of its 350+ membership of single parents living in poverty identified a need for innovative, community-based mental health support in the post-pandemic period. Following a UBC – CFE research project partnered with Dr. Lea Caragata Justice at Work for Lone Mothers in B.C. on the impact of the pandemic on work, mental health, and well-being for low-income lone-parent families that uncovered further need leading to Roots. Roots establishes two group therapy cohorts led by clinical counsellors with an innovative nature-based healing modality to support therapeutic healing, recovery, and coping. This program will support low-income mothers barriered from accessing mental health support due to their low-income status. At its heart a community-driven learning exchange, Roots will provide a co-creation approach to program development and will work with members to identify further innovations to meet the mental health and other service needs of this demographic with higher numbers of racialized, Black, Indigenous, and 2STLGBQ+ lone mother-led families through focus groups to develop and test the pilot as a basis for future collaborative partnerships. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

The MOSAIC SCOPE (Social and Civic Opportunities: Pathways to Equity) program is a part of MOSAIC’s larger vision of advancing an inclusive and thriving Canada. The SCOPE program will help to increase the participation of immigrants and newcomers in their local communities and to increase the diversity of local communities by including immigrant and newcomer voices in decision making tables such as governance boards, committees and advisory councils.  

The SCOPE program provides vital engagement support that will guide the creation of online asynchronous civic engagement and community participation courses. Initially the focus will be on supporting the development of a module on Introduction to Board Governance. The module will entail the following sub-modules:  

• Responsibilities, obligations, and legal duties of board members 
• Strategies for running good board meetings 
• Interpreting financial statements 

Through four community engagement sessions, feedback from newcomers and community partners will be gathered to guide the development of the training modules. In addition to exploring the newcomer’s perspective, engagement sessions will also apply an intersectional lens that includes other diverse perspectives (e.g., LGBTQ2S, indigenous, persons with a disability, etc.). 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

The City of Vancouver had a vacancy rate of 0.6% in 2015 (Pauly et al., 2016). With such low vacancy rates, students find it difficult to find affordable and safe housing within a reasonable commute time to the UBC Vancouver campus. The challenges of house hunting are worse for marginalized and underrepresented groups such as International Black Graduate Students (IBGS), leaving them stranded and unhoused upon arrival in Vancouver. 

Thus, the UBC Black Graduate Student Network (BGSN) and Hogan’s Alley Society (HAS) will partner to design and implement a homestay program with Vancouver households to provide short-term housing for IBGS upon their arrival. This short-term housing arrangement will address many of the challenges IBGS face in finding permanent accommodation, with the benefit of easing their cultural and academic transition to UBC, Vancouver, and Canada at large. 

In addition to implementing this homestay program, our partnership will also make relevant knowledge contributions by compiling a report deliverable including results from questionnaires, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews with IBGS, host households, and relevant stakeholders, respectively.  

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

This project based at the UBC Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice leverages its community partner’s (National Pilipino Canadian Cultural Centre or NPC3) creative talents, artistic & cultural skills, and social networks to pilot and develop a community-based Philippine Heritage Language Training and Literacy Programs for institutionalization at the UBC Arts Faculty led by the community and university proponents (NPC3 & UBC) in potential future collaboration with the Asian Studies & Asian-Canadian Asian Migration Programs. NPC3’s research, spoken word, visual arts & theatre projects have promoted critical-creative studies of Philippine cultures, histories, ethnicities, languages, & institutions through the arts. As previous studies show, strong mother-tongue proficiency is essential for immigrants’ health & well-being. This project  aims to strengthen the existing capacities of Filipinos in Vancouver. It will: 

1. Pilot an interactive heritage language teaching & learning leading to  

2. Language skills acquisition through Philippine artistic forms, culminating in  

3. Curated variety shows at the Pacific Theatre to showcase learners’ progress; &  

4. A preliminary Philippine Language curriculum for UBC Arts Faculty 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Umbrella Multicultural Health Co-op (UMHC) is a community health centre committed to delivering culturally-appropriate care and reducing barriers to access for immigrants, refugees and newcomers to Canada in the Lower Mainland through various innovations, including the employment of Cross Cultural Health Brokers (CCHBs). These bicultural health workers, often trained as healthcare professionals in their country of origin, bridge language and cultural barriers for patients with shared backgrounds, and empower patients to make informed decisions regarding their care. This project, a collaboration between UMHC and UBC’s Centre for Rural Health Research, will describe and document the role of Cross Cultural Health Brokers in increasing access to culturally appropriate care for immigrants and refugees, a demographic often marginalized in healthcare planning. Building on an existing relationship, this project will augment an evaluation of this model of culturally brokered care, enable strong partnerships ties between UMHC and UBC, ensure that research aligns with the needs of the community, and support crucial knowledge translation activities. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Fairness for Children Raised by Relatives Association (F4CRR) is a grassroots advocacy group formed in 2021 comprised of kinship caregivers, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others who are raising relative’s children in BC. F4CRR has partnered with the UBC Centre for the Study of Services to Children and Families (CSSCF) to develop and implement an advocacy strategy. The collaborative aim is to use evidence-based research to identify service gaps impacting kinship families and formulate calls-to-action for equitable supports to address the unique circumstances of children raised by relatives. This partnership is mutually beneficial in building university-community capacity for applied research with a social impact. This collaboration helps bridge the gap between academic theory and real-world application. F4CRR offers invaluable practical insights, lived experiences, and a direct connection to the issues being addressed. By leveraging the strengths of both F4CRR and UBC-CSSCF, we strive to bring about positive systemic changes to empower kinship caregivers, enhance the well-being of the children in their care, and promote fair and inclusive family supports in British Columbia. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

This partnership is between the City of Surrey and Live 5-2-1-0 at UBC, an initiative that partners with BC communities to promote healthy behaviours among children. Live 5-2-1-0 and the City of Surrey have an established partnership but collaboration was halted by Covid. With this project, we will revitalize this relationship and create opportunities for future joint initiatives. Together, we will extend and redevelop parts of the city’s current low-cost “MYzone” afterschool program. This program currently provides access to snacks in critical hours for middle years programs to children, some of whom come from food insecure households. Through our partnership, the program will be extended to provide more nutritious snacks and incorporate a more robust cooking component with a nutrition guide, cooking curriculum, and purchasing guide focused on food exploration, trauma and compassion informed approaches to nutrition, an equity-centred and culturally inclusive approach to cooking, and the promotion of positive relationships with food. The Live 5-2-1-0 philosophy will be embedded within the program, and this project will be the basis for future collaboration on related health topics. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

It is common for people to lack appropriate knowledge of death and bereavement, which has a negative impact in how people die and how they work through their grief after a death of someone significant (human or pet). Death is common in the DTES, especially given the toxic drug supply and COVID-19 pandemic. However, care and assistance surrounding death and bereavement is still very much lacking in this neighbourhood and among community members.  

In 2022, Carnegie Community Centre (with the Carnegie Branch Library of the Vancouver Public Library) created and organized the Community Death Care Project. The project provided education and support to the low-income and often stigmatized residents of the DTES (including those who are experiencing homelessness). The project has had great success to date, providing death and dying information sessions, bereavement support, cultural events, and facilitating end-of-life conversations. This grant will allow the continuation of such programming in 2024. Additionally, partnering with UBC, BCCPC and KHRC will allow the development of new programing based on their recent research on the experiences of bereavement and homelessness in the DTES. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

The language of ‘climate justice’ has become increasingly popular as the world faces ongoing climate crises. In syilx Okanagan Nation territories, we see these impacts through an intensity of fires, floods, and changing environments. The language of climate justice itself, however, can be alienating, particularly for syilx communities who have long voiced concerns for anthropogenic injustices that span over a century since settlers started claiming syilx homelands. syilx communities have expressed how the language of climate justice is rooted in colonial frameworks ill equipped to respectfully account for syilx perspectives for productive dialogue and systemic change. In light of these ongoing discussions, IndigenEYEZ—a syilx-led initiative dedicated to strengthening connections between syilx peoples and neighbours—will collaborate with Dr. Astrida Neimanis at UBCO to deepen discussions and build an understanding of how to build strong relationships that can lead to syilx-centric responses to systemic causes of climate injustices. To do so, we will begin with activities and dialogue to identify language that appropriately captures syilx values in relation to current climate crises. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

Tending Together intends to deepen connections on unceded lands, between the Downtown Eastside (DTES) Healing Garden at 117 East Hastings, the UBC Farm on Musqueam Land, and three Sovereign Indigenous Gardens at the UBC Farm (Centre for Land Based Indigenous Education, Research and Wellness at xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm garden, and Tal A’xin Mayan Garden) towards long-term sustainable partnership. This project welcomes people from the UBC and DTES garden networks to learn alongside Knowledge Keepers as together we forage hedgerows, tend perennial medicinal gardens at the UBC Farm, and redistribute these medicines to elders at Musqueam and in the DTES. It also proposes practice-based gatherings as ways of deepening existing relationships between both communities and the land. By weaving time, people, and stories on the land, the project allows seasonal, cultural and inter-generational knowledge exchange. 

Hives for Humanity (Hives) has engaged DTES communities for over a decade. Our project partners in this work have long relationships both in community organizing in the DTES, and at the UBC Farm. Monthly gatherings from April to November 2024 will bring together public and Knowledge Keepers to spend time on the land, deepen connection through the medicine of plants. 

This project description was supplied by the project team during the fund application process. 

The Youth Climate Ambassadors Project (YCAP) is a partnership between Climate Hub @UBC and Be The Change Earth Alliance (BTCEA) that adopts a peer-to-peer model to support youth leadership on climate change through hopeful, solution-focused workshops and mentorship. 

Acknowledging the prevalence of climate-related anxiety and dread, YCAP helps youth explore their emotions around climate change through storytelling, highlighting the power stories hold in influencing communities to take action. Workshops emphasize climate change as an issue of social justice requiring collective action. 

This approach is informed by leading social science research and direct engagement with the communities we serve, which indicates action is a powerful balm for climate despair, and that trusted messengers are critical in communicating climate change threats and solutions to their own communities. In its pilot phase, YCAP empowered over 2,000 students to tell their climate stories and become climate leaders. In this next phase, YCAP will expand to reach diverse youth in the interior and offer 2-part workshops to allow youth and facilitators to navigate and offer solutions to complex climate related emotions.