President & Executive
Director's Report
In their stocking feet, staff and Board Directors mingled on the blankets spread over much of the gym floor; they smiled at one another, greeted colleagues and quietly wondered what would come next.
This past year, CNH’s Board and staff started to work on a process of Reconciliation. They read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action, went through several educational workshops and activities, helped to lead the Early Childhood Educators’ Cultural Competency Film Project, brought an Indigenous focus to the annual Collingwood Days celebration and the CNH Management Team and Board President spent a day at Musqueam for a tour and some educational activities.
In approaching Reconciliation, we had decided that we needed to start by educating ourselves. And so, during the activity in the CNH gym, CNH’s full staff and some Board Directors were walked through the history of colonialism in British Columbia.
Some read parts of our history, all experienced it as the land (represented by the blankets organizers folded, folded again and then removed) available for Indigenous habitation shrunk. As the exercise proceeded more and more people left the floor, representing the loss of so many Indigenous people from smallpox, displacement and residential schools.
The exercise, offered by Kairos Canada volunteers, as well as other educational activities, have been an eye-opener for so many of us who either grew up in Canada but were not educated on our own colonial past, or who grew up in other countries and never learned the history of Indigenous people in BC and Canada. Over the coming year we will continue to learn and seek ways to embrace Reconciliation both within and beyond the walls of CNH.
And those walls will change over the coming year. As we’ve discussed for years now, CNH will be opening an annex – an additional 10,250-square-feet of space – in the ground floor of a new residential tower at Boundary and Vanness. We will finally occupy the new space in 2018!
This additional space will give us the opportunity to reach out to more people in our neighbourhood, to further develop and deepen our approaches to building community and to have an arts and cultural focus in the facility, as well as additional opportunities around food preparation and learning. The annex will include:
- a purpose-built arts creation space;
- a commercial-grade kitchen;
- a large multi-purpose space with a sprung floor, great acoustics and some theatrical lighting;
- a Children’s Room; and
- additional office space
CNH is a place to belong and a place to grow. This year as we expand into a larger space we are also growing in our understanding and acceptance of our past and, we hope, into a better future that embraces Reconciliation. As always, we are deeply grateful to the CNH staff, our Board Directors and all volunteers for their hard work and dedication to creating the sense of belonging we strive to provide at Collingwood Neighbourhood House.