Social Development Centre Waterloo Region

We are in April 2019, almost a year after the Rally of July 2018 in the midst of the municipal pre-election campaign, and still waiting for concrete work being done at the crossing. The train testing has been on for over 6 months and people's lives put at risk every day. Read more from a community advocate James Howe about the struggles and the patience of the residents in Traynor-Vanier. More about our work in this neighbourhood can be found at the Neighbourood Connections page. 

The Neighbourhood Connections Award has had a deep impact in neighbourhoods across Kitchener. Festival of Neighbourhoods, in itself, seemingly a simple approach, has contributed enormously in building close and loose ties among people in our community. They are our lifeline of access to information and opportunities. However, the Neighbourhood Connections Award, introduced in 2000 by Social Development Centre, helps us work through equity issues to build community capacity. Read about this unique process, welcomed by the Victoria Park neighbourhood in 2019, and more in our March E-Neighbour.

“Civic Hub is a collaborative and inclusive space, 
where grassroots innovation and advocacy is anchored,
where faces go with names, and
where energy and ideas are activated.”  

Civic Hub enthusiasts adopted the vision for the Civic Hub on March 11th meeting. We hope to ensure collaboration on longterm solutions to social and economic challenges in the region through a common mandate: grassroots capacity building, sharing of resources and skills, streamlining promotion and recruitment for social justice advocacy, building opportunities for true inclusion and dialogue across diversity. 

Since the introduction of the Blueprint for Poverty Free Ontario in 2009 and the social assistance review, Social Planning Network of Ontario, Social Development Centre Waterloo Region and Disabilities and Human Rights Group have been asking for immediate increase of social assistance rates. It was 10 years ago. Disability and Human Rights Group is reminding Ontario government in their pre-budget submission that employment will never be a solution for many on ODSP, and that dignity and income security relies on the readiness of the government to bring its people out of poverty by increasing the rates significantly as other work related programs are being designed. Watch the presentations by Marvyn Novick, Human Dignity for All: Working for a Poverty Free Ontario, on behalf of the Social Planning Network of Ontario, at the event hosted by the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region, Ray of Hope, and Poverty Free Waterloo Region on April 28, 2011.