At Action for Healthy Communities, we appreciate the power that comes from building healthy relationships and showing up as a good neighbour in the community. This year we embarked on a new approach to an annual event. The Action Dash was slowed down, to include time for co-creation of the Action Discovery Walk and celebrate the unique organizations and people within the neighbourhood of Queen Mary Park. With the support of the City of Edmonton Revitalization Coordinator Regan Gee, we formed an organizing committee with representatives from Shiloh Center for Multicultural Roots and the YEG Ambassadors. Together the committee crafted an event that featured the best parts of a Janes’ Walk with a summer block party.
Residents from across Edmonton were invited to discover the gems within Queen Mary Park by embarking on a walk throughout the neighbourhood. The walk was guided by a brochure printed in English and community members were offered the support of language ambassadors to provide translation in Mandarin, Tagalog, Oromo, Amharic, Arabic, Spanish & French.
Over 200 community members gathered outside the Shiloh Baptist Church where the block party was set up for music and a BBQ after the walk. The event was emceed by Canadian-Argentinian multilingual poet Luciana Erregue and opened with acknowledgement of Indigenous Territory by Kathy Hamlin aka Kokum Kathy.
The walk featured stops to explore the Shiloh Baptist Church, Edmonton Immigrant Settlement Association, African Parents Students Association @ Ecole a la Decourverte, All Nations Center, Diversity Center, Action for Healthy Communities, and the Ethiopian Community Association. It also included a stop at the Memorial by Creating Hope Society for lost Indigenous children from the colonial childcare and residential school systems.
Other organizations who shared information at the BBQ included the Gateway Association, the Mustard Seed, Africanival, McMan Youth, Family and Community Services Association, the Resiliency Project, North Edge Business Association and Human Faces of 107 Ave.
View images from the event below!