Date & time
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
12 p.m. – 2 p.m.
12 p.m. – 2 p.m.
Registration is closed
Community events, Workshops & seminars
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Successful community-university partnerships to amplify voices and influence policymakers
SHIFT Lunch and Learn: Protecting Montreal’s Chinatown heritage and combatting abusive practices by telecommunications services towards aging adults.
Speaker(s)
Jessica Chen, Silvano De La Llata, Anne Caines, Constance Carrier-Lafontaine
Cost
This event is free
Organization
Contact
Where
J.W. McConnell Building
1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation
Room LB 145
Wheel chair accessible
Yes
The SHIFT Lunch and Learn: Learning Community Showcase series occurs on the first Tuesday of each month. Meet members of the SHIFT Learning Community and learn more about the socially transformative initiatives they are leading!
Photos: JIA Foundation and Rachel Cheng
On this special edition of the Lunch and Learn, we are bringing together a panel of four actors to share their experience driving institutional change through multisectoral collaborations.
Join us for a conversation where we will explore questions such as:
What approaches are effective at influencing practices and policies at the municipal and federal levels?
How community and academic actors can become real allies alongside elected decision makers to effect change?
What skills and expertise can community-university partnerships draw on to facilitate successful dialogues and negotiation with power holders?
What are the key success factors and challenges of a bottom-up approach seeking changes in policies and bylaws?
Panelist
JIA Foundation x Concordia’s Next-Generation Cities Institute (NGCI)
Montreal’s Chinatown is now the only significant historical Chinatown preserved in Quebec and Eastern Canada. But how did this happen?
Amid growing concerns around the impact of rapid gentrification and massive investment from the public sector, residents and community organizers, such as the Chinatown Working Group, joined forces to preserve the historical, architectural, and social value of the site. In this fight, NGCI became a research partner by contributing a study mapping Chinatown’s buildings and public spaces, and by developing an interactive video game to explore scenarios of proposed developments.
Speakers
- Jessica Chen (JIA Foundation)
- Pr Silvano De La Llata (Next-Generation Cities Institute)
RECAA (Respecting Elders Communities against Abuse) x ACT (Ageing + Communications + Technologies) Lab
Based on interviews conducted with 53 Canadian seniors from 2017 to 2018, it was found that 75% reported experiencing predatory sales practices in the telecommunications industry. Seniors, people with disabilities, and those whose first language is neither French nor English were particularly vulnerable to the industry's misleading practices, often being pressured into purchasing services and devices that were unsuitable and more expensive than they needed.
RECAA and the ACT Lab were instrumental in highlighting this issue. In collaboration with other stakeholders, they succeeded in getting the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to act, mandating new policies on telecommunications services for seniors.
Speakers
- Anne Caines (RECAA)
- Constance Carrier-Lafontaine (ACT Lab)
JIA Foundation is a non-profit organization working to create meaningful ways to connect people with Montreal’s Chinatown and to explore their sense of belonging with the space.
In September 2023, the Foundation organized the Chinatown Reimagined Forum, a three-day event in Montreal where diverse actors, including community members, urban planners, and policymakers came together to tackle some of the Chinatown’s challenges. The Chinatown Reimagined Forum 2023 received funding from SHIFT through the Gateway Program.
RECAA (Respecting Elders Communities against Abuse) is an organization of elders from Montreal’s cultural communities who work across age, gender and ethnic lines to promote a culture of respect for elders from all our communities.
The ACT (Ageing + Communications + Technologies) Lab is a research hub based at Concordia University. ACT examines what it means to age in a digital world and develops strategies to rectify digital divides in collaboration with older adults.
Open to all, register in advance or drop by if you are on campus.
Bring your own lunch or snack on what we have!
Please note this event is held in person, at the SHIFT space. If, for accessibility reasons, you are not able to join in person but would like to attend the event, please contact emma.harake@concordia.ca and we can work together to see if an alternative solution is possible. A week’s notice will give us the best chance of making something work.