Action for Healthy Communities is pleased to be part of the #internationalwomensday movement around the globe. AHC has a number of programs and initiatives
AHC offers a comprehensive 8-week Networking Empowerment for Women (N.E.W) program. The program equips and empowers women with a variety of skills including life skills, career planning, employability, goal setting, networking, and more!
The next upcoming session will commence in last April 2019. For more information on the N.E.W program email: joelle.kacou@a4hc.ca
Girls Talk is a free program for newcomer female youth (14 – 19 years old) that offers a safe environment to discuss various topics, develop positive self-esteem and support one another.
For more information or to register email: basem.alhrahim@a4hc.ca. For more information on our other youth club activities click here.
AHC offers business development training for Immigrants, Women, and residents of Northeast Edmonton (T5Y and surrounding areas) who are interested in starting a small business or want to develop a social enterprise to contribute to their project’s sustainability.
For more information on this program click here. For inquiries email: lida.arguello@a4hc.ca
Luciana was selected the 2019 Artist in Residence through a partnership between AHC and the Edmonton Arts Council. Luciana is a Canadian-Argentinian multilingual poet (Spanish-English-Italian), art historian (MA 2016, University of Alberta), and educator. She will be with us as an Artist in Residence until October 1st, 2019.
Luciana is joining our team to support existing projects and share some of her many talents and community connections with the community members we serve. She is looking forward to meeting with our team and explore opportunities to participate in existing programs, or simply bounce off ideas on how she can best contribute to strengthen the aims of AHC.
Her poems have appeared on online international magazines, (Reflex Fiction, The Write Launch, Your Impossible Voice), in the anthologies Home Connecting Us All (2018), edited by Tololwa Mollel,Looking Back, Moving Forward, edited by Julie C. Robinson, (Mawenzi House, 2019), and in The PolyglotMultilingual Magazine. She guest edited Can Lit: Curating our Canons (The Polyglot, Spring 2018). In 2018 she took part of the Writers Guild of Alberta Borderlines Writers Circle and Margaret Christakos Canopy Project at the University of Alberta (2018) and run the memory and art workshop My Marvellous Museum at University of Alberta’s International Week. She has performed at theEdmonton Poetry Festival (2017, 2018), CJSR, and Lit Fest 2018. She has volunteered at the Centre for Family Literacy (2016-2018), and also sits in the Editorial Board of The Polyglot Multilingual Magazine. When she is not leading tours at the Art Gallery of Alberta, she enjoys roaming the city of Edmonton to write poetic responses to art and life in her blog, https://spectatorcurator.wordpress.com/.
When asked about her story she states “Like the clients you serve and some of the people who work here, I was once a newcomer, speaking mostly Spanish since I was born in Argentina. As years went by I completed my undergraduate and graduate education (BA and MA Art History) at the University of Alberta, raised two children, Federico and Bianca who are now university graduates themselves, and began work as a Gallery Assistant at the Art Gallery of Alberta. I also began to write poetry mixing English and Spanish and became acquainted with the Edmonton arts community through my participation in the Borderlines Writers’ Group at the Writers Guild of Alberta and as a performer and event organizer at the Edmonton Poetry Festival. What I want to say is that, far from forgetting about my mother tongue, these days it is more present than ever, when I realize that what makes Edmonton a vibrant city is this Babel, this variety of languages heard throughout every place in the city. During my time here I want to allow the community around A4HC to express themselves in their mother tongue, and in English simultaneously, by engaging with the images that surround us, our Art Gallery, our downtown, our public art, writing about those experiences of looking around, grounding themselves in this new place, in whatever language they decide they wish to write.”
Luciana will facilitate a number of readings and workshops during her residency with AHC. Details for her first two upcoming events are below, Having gone through the immigration experience, Luciana will fuse creative expression, multilingualism and the immigrant experience in order to provide newcomers with a “creative outlet” to come to terms with their new Canadian home, without leaving behind their roots.
To contact Luciana email: luciana.erregue@a4hc.ca