Growing Healthy Communities means including the Community
December 2, 2024
By Marco Campana, Knowledge Mobilization and Social Action Coordinator, Access Alliance
In 2016 our team of researchers at Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services embarked on a project focused on promoting green living among low-income newcomer residents in Toronto’s Taylor-Massey neighbourhood. Fast forward eight years and our findings and approach are still relevant for those interested in implementing similar programs aiming at equity-informed community development.
Green Living is Part of the Settlement Journey
For many newcomers, coming to Canada is about building a better life for themselves and their families. This includes creating a positive impact on their immediate environment. With the growing concern of climate change and environmental degradation, there has been a shift towards practicing green living – activities and practices that reduce our negative impact on the environment.
However, low-income and vulnerable communities face socioeconomic barriers to practicing green living. Our goal was to make this knowledge accessible to them and find ways for it to be integrated into their daily lives. We focused on community-engaged, place-based approaches and evaluated the impacts of our peer-led environmental leadership program – Enviroleaders Program.
Our goals were to build awareness of environmental issues among residents of Taylor-Massey and encourage immigrant and refugee communities to adopt new ‘green living’ practices in 4 keys areas: reducing water usage, reducing plastic waste, sustainable gardening, and biking as an alternative to driving. We also sought to connect them with information to take advantage of available resources in the city to support green living.
We saw significant improvements in participants’ knowledge of where to access green living information and resources, building their capacity on how to grow food sustainably, and promoting healthy eating practices. Most participants reported implementing these practices at home and developing stronger connections within their community. Our Enviroleaders also showed growth in confidence and presentation skills.
Despite these successes, we also identified some ongoing challenges within the community. Limited income made organic products less affordable for residents, and structural barriers such as rental housing restrictions limited space for growing food in their units or immediate surroundings. Additionally, language barriers highlighted the need for community organizations to provide programming in multiple languages to make it accessible for all residents.
Our project showed the importance of addressing these barriers when promoting green living among vulnerable populations. You can find more information about our work in this project summary.
What is transferable from our project
Our approach follows the principles of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), Asset Based Community Development, and Appreciative Inquiry to create a more inclusive, equitable, and healthy society. By deepening civic engagement and addressing social determinants of health, you can create a more equitable and healthy society for newcomers.
To successfully replicate our work, we recommend first identifying the strengths and resources within your community. This will involve working closely with the communities you serve and want to reach, using an inclusion by design approach.
Using a peer-led approach will improve community engagement. In our project, workshops led by Enviroleaders, who were peers from the newcomer community, had a significant impact on community buy-in and participation.
One way to help create community engagement is to create a multilingual “Green Living Tips for Newcomers” booklet. Our booklet features tips and resources around four main topics – reducing plastic waste, water usage, sustainable gardening, active transportation. It is available in English and was translated into five key client languages (English, Bengali, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Tigrinya)
The booklet focuses on things newcomers can do as individuals. It also acknowledges that individuals alone cannot solve climate change and pollution issues and provides a list of organizations for those interested in taking further action.
In addition to creating informational materials such as booklets, we also recommend building on our research work and Enviroleaders approach to engage newcomers in green living practices. In 2016 we found that Environmental NGOs lacked diversity and equity policies. They tended to assume that newcomers and low-income families are not interested in green living and tend to exclude them. Only 17% of our study participants mentioned they access information or services from environmental NGOs. There is a huge opportunity for Environmental NGOs to work with communities and implement peer outreach models like Enviroleaders to reach and engage with more people.
When implementing programming for green living initiatives, it is important to think long-term and build sustainable options. This can include partnering with other community organizations for broader impact and offering longer-term programming options to deepen knowledge and connections within the community.
Lastly, in order to make programming accessible, it is important to provide language-specific workshops and practical, hands-on demonstrations. This may also include providing basic supplies to offset initial costs for community members, as well as offering support such as childcare, transportation, and interpretation services to make events and training more accessible.
Build upon our booklets, research work, and Enviroleaders approach to create newcomer-led, newcomer-friendly green living information. We encourage you to share your successes with others so that they can replicate and build upon your work for the benefit of all communities.