During COVID-19, settlement services, including English groups, information sessions, and activities, are available online and by appointment.
Community Leadership Program
Gain a certificate that can be useful for work, volunteering, and for your resume through this 10-week program.
Community development is a way to look at social change, to make our communities and our individual lives better. Many immigrants feel that they lose a lot of their self-value in moving to a new country (Canada) and this program is also an opportunity to really see and understand what strengths we can bring to life here. In this way, we can learn how to start building our own and then others’ skills to work towards a better community.
The Community Leadership Program aims to help participants build the skills they need to
– achieve their leadership and/or employment goals.
– start working within their communities to plan and complete projects that improve the community.
After the program, we hope you will bring your ideas and energy to get involved in your community.
You may also like to volunteer with the Welcome Centre.
The Community Leadership Program includes 6 core sessions and key topics, followed by 4 sessions in which participants choose optional topics while they are developing community development projects.
Core sessions cover:
- Exploring Community: Developing healthy communities, community connections.
Focus on community development: Understand and examine the principles of asset-based community development.
Leadership: Leadership roles and qualities, collective leadership, leadership styles.
Communication skills: Encouraging/ discouraging communication, asking questions, listening skills.
Facilitation skills: Brainstorming techniques, conflict resolution, building consensus.
Networking/outreach: Recognizing, accessing, building and using networks.
Planning: Creating outcome plans: develop your own ideas for community projects.
Optional topics participants can choose from include
- Partnerships
- Building an organization
- Writing funding proposals
- Running a formal meeting
- Public relations
- Bookkeeping
- Reading financial statements
- Cooperatives
- Starting a small business
During the second part of the program, participants work together to develop a community development project to address a need they have identified.
The 2021 Community Leadership Program will run online from 5 to 7pm weekly from Thursday February 11 till April 15.
At the end of this program, you will work with a local team to develop and implement a project in your own community focusing on building a more equitable society.
