Wellbeing Waterloo Region is hosting a series of events this March. These events have a theme of resilience leading to hope. This past year has been difficult, and our community has faced many challenges that we have never seen before. Through celebrating the good stories and examples of resiliency from the past year, we can tap into a deep sense of hope that will connect us as a community and help us through the time to come.
Connecting the Community Through Resilience and Hope
This virtual event on Friday, March 12 from 1pm to 3pm marks the one year anniversary since the pandemic was declared. the event is designed to engage participants in conversations about their experience during the pandemic and celebrate some of the positive examples of resilience and community connection that were experienced during this past year. The format of the event will include speakers/performances as well as smaller break out discussions.
One speaker is Dr. Jill Stoddart from Family and Children’s Services who will share insights from the Resilience Project and what they have learned to boost the community capacity for enhancing community resilience. There will also be opening comments from Kitchener MPP Laura Mae Lindo, and a musical performance from Juneyt!
Before this event, participants are encouraged to listen to two free podcasts called The World of Possibility –produced by the Blend Media Group in partnership with Wellbeing Waterloo Region. The podcasts are focused on community resilience and feature The Resilience Project from Waterloo Region.
The podcasts add some background to the conversations of community resilience that will take place at the March 12th event, but they can be listened to or shared at any time. The link to access these free podcasts is included below:
Click the image to listen to the podcasts on Spotify. The podcasts are also available on Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket casts, and Radio Public.
From Behind the Mask- Quilt Making Workshop
From Behind the Mask is a local community art project creating a collective quilt out of our individual COVID-19 stories. This project is taking place across Waterloo Region with participants of all ages taking part.
Join Brenda on Wednesday, March 17, from 10am to 11am in a hands-on workshop, learning about quilts and story-telling through textiles. Discover a variety of techniques you can use to create your own quilt block for the community quilt.
No special skills required, this project is open to all ages and abilities! Free quilt block kits will be provided to get you started. Kits include: the quilt block fabric, assorted scrap fabrics, yarn, and a needle and thread card. Bring scissors and white glue (if you have it) to the workshop with you. You can also collect some items from around your home to help make you block including: markers, pens, pencil crayons, acrylic paint, buttons, other fabric/old clothes you might want to cut up!
Mindfulness with Dr. Mitchell Abrams
On Wednesday, March 24th at 1:30pm, Join Dr. Mitchell Abrams, radiologist, educator, musician, CEO and founder of NexGen Health, a social enterprise with a mission of creating healthy minds and thriving communities, as he explains an innovative approach to health and wellness and social divide.
Using the power of music, art and narrative, Dr. Abrams educates, heals and inspires communities.
He incorporates the science of the West with the wisdom of the East and teaches us how caring for one another, sharing hope, and building thriving social structures, leads to greater resilience and better health outcomes for everyone. Abrams will explore emerging medical science and provide context to help us understand what nature has been trying to teach us all along. He will empower participants with new perspectives of who and what we are as individuals and as a community. Together, we will discover a roadmap for building healthier communities, locally and globally, that will shift our current global trajectory towards a brighter future distinct from the past.
Hope 101: A Community-Building Workshop
When we think of COVID-19, climate emergency, or injustice, what does it mean to have hope? On a personal level, when faced with sickness, conflict, or overwhelming difficulty, do you have hope? This workshop on Tuesday, March 30 from 1pm to 3pm offers an introduction to hope from various perspectives (e.g. philosophical, spiritual, political, medical) and explores hope as a way of building community in the face of difficulty.
We will learn together from a variety of sources, and we will exercise our “hope muscles”. Following the workshop, those who are interested are invited to participate in a collaborative writing project where we will create an opinion piece (about hope!) for the local newspaper.
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