Our City Hall Campaign: Community Engagement
Over the past year, we delivered 30 workshops to over 500 community participants across every neighbourhood in the city. It was so moving to be in community with residents that make Vancouver such a vibrant, diverse, and joyous city.
We collaborated with so many organizations that opened their doors to us, organized food, invited their communities, and made these workshops possible. And we were so grateful for the many volunteers who showed up to take notes, capture photos, and support our workshop delivery.
To all of you who joined an Our City Hall workshop in the last seven months, thank you for lending your voice to this work.
You created worlds with the fidget toys we provided. You crafted bouquets, bathrooms, and shapes of cities that we envisioned together out of pipe cleaners.
You invited us into the knowledge of secret neighbourhood hot pot spots and garden delights planted 60 years ago from India in South Vancouver gardens. You ate pastries, drank coffee and lemonade, and introduced yourselves to new neighbours.
You sat on pillows in cozy rooms, in pull out chairs in neighbourhood houses across the city or sweat in front of fans in community centres. You wrote on sticky notes your vision for a better city and shared your own personal stories with new friends.
You brought your kiddos who coloured illustrations of City Hall, who lay upside down on couches during talks of jurisdiction, who gave us the snottiest hugs as you brainstormed the things you and your family need.
We were able to reach brand new audiences with real-time translations from English to Arabic, Spanish, Farsi, Mandarin, and Cantonese!
Your voices moved us time and time again.
Your voices shaped this campaign.
To celebrate all of our contributions, join us for the launch of the Our City Hall campaign on Tuesday, September 1st at 10:00 am at Helena Gutteridge Plaza at City Hall (Corner of Yukon and 11th Street, Vancouver, BC).
We can’t wait to share the policies that emerged from this campaign. We’ll be joined by some of our community partners including speakers from 411 Seniors Centre Society, Coordinated Community Response Network, Sher Pride, the Reframing South Vancouver team at South Vancouver Neighbourhood House and SWAN.
There will be donuts and coffee and activities for the entire family! We’d love to see you at City Hall on September 1st.
PS. We are hosting the Our City Hall Forum: Council Candidates Forum on Wednesday, September 16th at 5:00 pm to ask candidates from each major party how they plan to implement the policies we came up with.
The event is free in-person and virtually and we’d love to see you there!
