Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement: Cities Reducing Poverty

Background

Founded in 2001, the Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement is a charity that develops and supports learning communities to help people collaborate and to co-generate knowledge that solves complex community challenges. Tamarack’s mission is to end poverty in Canada. Vibrant Communities Canada (VC) is an initiative of the Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement, the Caledon Institute of Social Policy and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. A comprehensive place-based national program, in its first phase (2003-2011) VC aimed to reduce poverty in selected Canadian cities and at least 100,000 individual households by 2011. In its second phase (2012-2014), the VC network grew to 47 communities across Canada. It has successfully fostered local collaborations through a “collective impact” approach: businesses, community organizations and government coming together to create local jobs, deliver innovative social programs, and craft housing and transportation policies that promote social inclusion for vulnerable residents.

Full Description

In the third phase of the Vibrant Communities Canada (VC) initiative (2015-2020), support from the Foundation and others will enable Tamarack to deepen theдуїimpact of the VCC network in three ways:

• Municipal-Provincial collaboration: VC will work with the provinces of Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick and cities across the country to test innovative approaches to reduce poverty through collaboration among multiple levels of government and citizen groups.
• Mayors’ Caucus: Tamarack and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities will establish a Mayors’ Caucus on urban poverty. The objectives are to share promising solutions and make urban poverty reduction a priority with all governments.
• Collaboration with Cities for People network: The Foundation and Tamarack will work together to share promising approaches, breakthrough projects and learnings from Cities for People through VC’s larger systems and knowledge and engagement platforms.

Website: www.vibrantcommunities.ca/ and http://tamarackcommunity.ca/