Projects 2003/2004
Intercultural Group
Richard Hoshino, Matthew Sullivan and Janet Vertesi
Canadian high school students will learn more about living harmoniously with cultural diversity now that a group of Action Canada Fellows has established a working model for high school cultural diversity workshops.
Their two cultural diversity training conferences in Nova Scotia, designed as models for high school students across Canada, were not only extremely successful but have spawned a compelling network of people, organizations, and educators passionate about diversity training.
Recognizing that multiculturalism is often touted but not always ‘lived’, three Action Canada Fellows hosted two pilot conferences for high school students in Nova Scotia in spring 2004. The first conference brought together 135 homogeneous students from Nova Scotia’s South Shore school district to learn about aboriginal culture, Islam, homophobia, African Nova Scotian culture, human rights and bullying. The second conference introduced 50 culturally diverse students from Halifax to intercultural communication skills, tools for interpreting media reports and ways to examine their biases. Both model conferences brought students into contact with new people and ideas and explored the skills we all need for living harmoniously in a diverse Canada.
The students’ positive reactions to the conferences, and their recognition that they need diversity training, coupled with the interest shown by teachers, social organizations and school districts has culminated in the Fellows’ ambition to maintain an electronic list-serv. In this domain, like-minded people would share experiences and contacts in order to organize future conferences and events in schools across the country.
“This project channeled our enthusiasm for cultural diversity as a Canadian value into a deliverable that has had a tangible and cascading impact on young Canadians’ lives,” says Richard Hoshino, an Action Canada Fellow involved in the group. “We strongly feel that somehow, we or other Action Canada Fellows in future need to continue our involvement with these groups and see this project through to its larger conclusion.”
Foreign Policy Group
Alia Ali, Neil Bouwer and Jan Stefan Eperjesi
Two documentary films exposing Southeast Asian perceptions of Canada and its foreign policies shed new light on how Canada can improve its international public policy development and promote better cultural understanding.
Working with local film producers in Indonesia and Pakistan, three Action Canada Fellows produced Jakarta: What They Think (of us) and Identity: Canada Through a Foreign Eye ( Pakistan). The films reveal not only the commonly held stereotypes of ‘the East’ and ‘the West’ but also a wide cross-section of people’s perceptions about Canada. The films also posed questions about how Canada could act in these regions to build international public policy development and promote better intercultural understanding.
Using inferences from the films, the group then devised a framework for policy discussion. They proposed that Canadian foreign policy might promote ‘reciprocal cultural affirmation’ as a means to increase the effectiveness of our public diplomacy, contribute to global stability and prosperity and to advance Canada’s interests and our role in the world.
The group is now in the midst of distributing the films in hopes of stimulating further dialogue and exchanges of ideas, particularly at the policy development level.
Radio Action Canada
Peter MacLeod
What is the Action Canada experience? Fellow Peter MacLeod produced a radio documentary that captures the organization’s inaugural year and highlights the first cohort of Fellows’ experiences.
By the close of the last working conference, the Fellows had recorded a series of wide-ranging conversations that offer unique insights into the Action Canada experience.
VoteSmart
Karen Caputo, Diana Juricevic, Martin Lavoie, Denise Taschereau and Léonie Tchatat
Many young Canadians don’t vote, largely because they feel they don’t have enough information on political parties and their candidates. That’s why five Action Canada Fellows established VoteSmart, a website dedicated to raising the political awareness of youth by publishing non-partisan and reliable election information.
Based on a similar and highly effective project in the U.S., VoteSmart came on-line in the lead-up to the 2004 federal election, offering non-partisan information on key issues and party positions. The site identified key electoral issues and provided voting records, party speeches, party platforms and historical party voting patterns.
To ensure they reached as many young Canadians as possible, the group also collaborated with youth organizations, incorporating their website in advertising and promotional campaigns in schools and universities. They also conducted a survey among university students, in partnership with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, to identify the issues that matter to youth.
In May 2003, VoteSmart partnered with VoteOutLoud and StudentVote2004 to provide content for and attend a televised debate featuring the Minister of Finance debating the federal budget with opposition party finance critics at an Ottawa high school.
VoteSmart’s central message: “To make a difference, you must know the difference.”
Poverty: Perception vs. Reality
David Helliwell, Gabriel Jean-Simon, Flavie Major, Ann McCann, Annamie Paul, Jamie Ross and Zenia Wadhwani
Poverty among new immigrants, post-secondary graduates and working-poor families is undermining Canada’s future. That’s what seven Action Canada Fellows discovered after embarking on an ambitious examination of poverty in Canada.
Their concern for the issue arose from Canada’s recent slide from first to eighth place in the United Nations Human Development Index and its ranking of 12th out of 17 countries in another UN classification, the Human Poverty Index.
To investigate the problem, the group commissioned an EKOS poll to determine citizens’ perceptions about poverty issues. They learned that nine out of ten Canadians think the country ranks higher on the poverty index than it actually does, indicating a significant gap between public perception and reality. The group used statistics and personal interviews to explore and highlight particular issues, including under-employment among new immigrants, debt loads for post-secondary graduates and the struggles of the working poor.
To bring their message to Canadians and policy makers, the group produced a poster for national distribution and wrote an editorial conveying their concern and soliciting a call for action.
Their message: “The poor are your neighbours, your co-workers, perhaps your friends. We want YOU to get involved, and there are things you can do to help. Volunteer your time. Adjust your consumer habits to support socially responsible businesses. Lobby your elected representatives. Let’s make this a policy priority for our government.”
