Letting the Light In

We know many organizations have been feeling overwhelmed by the seeming endless news rolling in: the now obvious shifts in the US, the abandonment of Indigenous women in Val d’Or, the drastic cuts to welfare at the same time as a budgetary surplus is announced, the approval of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline. Many of us are also watching as Indigenous people, holding the front lines of change in Standing Rock and elsewhere, are met with extreme resistance and force. The road ahead seems long, and we are challenged to rise to the occasion amidst our existing work, deadlines, and the end of the year approaching.

Community workers and activists have many good reasons to be tired, angry and discouraged.

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We Want to Hear About Your Tech Problems (No, really!)

As many of you know, for the last 5 years, COCo has been providing tech and communications support for community organizations through our Commun-IT program. As we come up on this important milestone year, we felt it was important to check in with community groups about their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) needs!

Click here to fill out the survey.

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Resources on Fighting Racism in Your Organization

In the midst of putting together our research project on racism in the Quebec community sector (see more on that here), not to mention a definite increase in requests from organizations looking to tackle racism internally and in their communities, we stumbled across this great website, Racial Equity Tools. It seems like the site is in fact a merger of 3 other websites addressing similar topics, and it’s pretty awesome.

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Teaching Community Technology Handbook

Here at COCo, our Commun-IT program is constantly engaged in how to transfer the skills we have around technology and media to the community groups we work with. It is a clear truth of our work that “having a particular skill doesn’t necessarily mean you are equipped to teach it to others”- which is why we are thrilled to hear about teh launch of the Teaching Community Technology Handbook from the Detroit Community Technology Project.

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2 New Funding Opportunities To Check Out!

We’re not usually in the business of listing new grant opportunities, but these two came across our desk recently and seemed uniquely suited to COCO members. Check them out!

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