| Sustainable Calgary has started a project to engage citizens in creating a five-year action plan to make the city more caring, vibrant and healthy.
The non-profit group, which has put out three State of Our City reports measuring the overall health and sustainability of Calgary, has already held three forums that had a combined attendance of more than 300 people. The organization has also held workshops to consult with members of the non-profit, government and business sectors, as well as youth, seniors, immigrants, aboriginals, people with developmental disabilities and low-income residents.
Maryam Nabavi, project co-ordinator for the citizens’ agenda, says the goal is to reach out to communities that are often "marginalized." In January, Sustainable Calgary will hold additional workshops throughout the city, and in February it will hold a full-day plenary in which everyone who has participated in the process will be invited to come together to develop a five-year action plan, or "citizens’ agenda."
Nabavi says the plan should be completed by the spring in order to coincide with the release of Imagine Calgary’s 30-year action plan. A city-led initiative, Imagine Calgary aims to come up with a 100-year vision for the city.
"Theirs is a much more in-depth and a larger vision. Ours is what we can do in the immediate future…. It’s a lot more concrete about what you as an individual can do today to create these changes," says Nabavi.
She adds that Calgary hasn’t made progress on many sustainability indicators in the last three State of Our City reports put out by her organization, so further action is required.
"Our ecological footprint is the highest in Canada, our poverty rate is skyrocketing, so there’s various issues that have really been a cause for concern and that we’re not showing any improvement in," says Nabavi. "We really wanted to have participatory democracy in action and get people to speak about the issues that were near and dear to their hearts and where they thought they could shift change."
Jennifer Allford, Imagine Calgary spokesperson, says Sustainable Calgary’s citizens’ agenda will fit in well with what the city is trying to achieve.
Citizens were asked to answer five questions about how they feel about Calgary currently and what they want to see it become in the future. Allford says the response was "phenomenal," with 18,000 Calgarians providing feedback.
"I think Calgarians are really passionate about their city and they love this town and there’s just so many great things to build on here," she says.
A round table comprised of citizens from a variety of different sectors, including politicians, bureaucrats and business and non-profit leaders, is currently preparing a draft report on the vision for Calgary over the next 100 years. Working groups, also comprised of people from various Calgary sectors, will come up with 30-year strategies and targets by next spring to make the vision a reality.
"It’s a big, huge, hairy gorilla ambitious project. There’s no question about it. But this is the kind of town and we’ve got the kind of smarts and energy and passion in this town to pull this off," says Allford.
She says Imagine Calgary is important because the city can’t get where it’s going if it doesn’t know where it wants to be.
"Imagine Calgary is very much about making sure we have a prosperous economy, a clean environment and a high quality of life for people who live here in a hundred years."
For more information, go to www.sustainablecalagary.ca and www.imaginecalgary.ca |
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