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【Toronto, Ontario, Oct 29th, 2020】Project Protech will launch two new community engagement initiatives: Community Partners’ Showcase and Resilience Dialogue Workshop Series” Starting this November 4.
“As the second wave of COVID-19 cases surges across Canada, all communities face unprecedented life, work and psychological challenges. Throughout the pandemic, Asian Canadian communities have reported widespread experience of racism over the coronavirus. Project PROTECH will release two types of community engagement events to respond to these needs to improve community awareness and access to resources available and identify strategies to address the various emerging challenges.” said Dr. Alan Li, co-Principal Researcher and Chair of Community Engagement Committee of Project Protech.
Starting November, Protech will have the “Community Partners’ Showcase” every Tuesday evening. This showcase highlights the work of our community partners who have been providing vital support during the pandemic to various members of the Chinese/Asian Canadian communities. A key staff member from these organizations will speak about their work, services they provide, the issues or concerns about the communities they serve and opportunities for collaborative community action.
“Our communities have faced a high level of stigma and discrimination since the start of the pandemic, getting to know the different resources out there and how different community partners have mobilized and adapted to meet the challenges really warms my heart and gives us hope,” shared Steven Shi, volunteer host for the PROTECH community engagement programs.
In addition, PROTECH will host a live-stream “Resiliency Dialogues workshop series” every Thursday evening, where panel speakers from different backgrounds will engage in discussions to unpack the impact of racism and other forms of discrimination on our communities during this pandemic; and to further identify individual and collective strategies to support our communities’ resilient responses. These sessions are streamed live with audience participation. They will also be recorded and accessible through our YouTube channel video library.
“We developed these workshops in response to our community’s requests for practical strategies to deal with different barriers and discrimination they have been facing. Our workshops will be based on real-life scenarios submitted by our community members that relate to the racism and challenges they face in different settings such as the workplace, schools, public spaces, online, dating and when accessing different services,” said Rain Chan, Protech’s Community Engagement Coordinator.
Our upcoming Resilience Dialogues workshops will include topics, such as the latest in access to income support, dealing with challenges in accessing services (Mandarin), dealing with racism in public spaces, our protection under the Ontario Human Rights Code, and racism in social media, online and dating scenarios. If you have real-life cases and issues you want us to discuss, please send it to us by email at engagement@projectprotech.ca or leave us a message via phone at 416-456-5887.
For a more detailed schedule of our upcoming events, please check our website at https://projectprotech.ca/whats-new/events
For Questions about our Community Engagement Programs:
Rain Chan, Community Engagement Coordinator
engagement@proejctprotech.ca
Tel:416-456-5887
For media and interview contact:
Cindy Lu, Content Manage Coordinator
content@projectprotech.ca
Tel: 647-927-4247
