Our Community Blogs share stories from across our work with equity-deserving communities, highlighting AHC programs, partnerships, and community-led initiatives in action. Through reflections, updates, and success stories, we showcase how culturally responsive programming and inclusive service delivery support individuals and groups to strengthen wellbeing and build capacity.
Alongside program insights, you’ll find community success stories and testimonials that reflect the impact of collaboration, participation, and grassroots leadership. Together, these blogs offer a practical and people-first look at how communities are advancing their own wellbeing and prosperity, with AHC walking alongside them as a partner.
On September 22, 2018, AHC's settlement team hosted a family field trip for clients and their families at the Strathcona Wilderness Centre. The fun-filled day included a guided tour, a fire lighting tutorial (participants practiced a variety of fire lighting techniques to enable them to start a fire in any weather. Topics include the difference between tinder and kindling, how to collect materials responsibly from the environment and how to build a fire that will provide sufficient warmth and comfort to survive in the bush). Participants learned knot tying, shelter building, and tarp set-up. Concepts of minimal impact camping were emphasized. The focus of this program was a hands-on experience, providing participants with an opportunity to construct their own shelters and identify the purpose behind various methods of shelter building. View images from the field trip below.
Our Social Media Fair leadership training event was held on Saturday, October 27th. The workshop had 70 participants with the workshop split into four sections:
1. Introduction to Social Media (Community Hall) - Tracy Folorunsho-Barry, President & CEO, GROW
2. Leadership Training Workshop: Digital & Social Media: Strategy & Tactics in Management- Tracy Folorunsho-Barry, President & CEO, GROW
3. Social Media Learning Workshop (Computer Labs)- Mohamed Imthiyaz, President,Total Digital Way; Shruti Arora, Market Insights Analyst I, Marketing, Servus Credit Union
4. Social Media Showcase
After the introduction, we had five classes to help our clients learn social media including a leadership training workshop, computer-based social media learning class, mobile social media learning class, Chinese senior computer-based social media learning class, and Chinese senior mobile social media learning class
20 students from the University of Alberta provided one-on-one teaching for our senior participants. Participants enjoyed the training and food. They reported that the workshops and classes are knowledgeable and practical. The training helped them develop some basic knowledge and skills about social media. In particular, our Chinese senior learners (most of them are AHC's Chinese senior English students) were very happy to open their social media accounts and learn social media. In all, participants stated that they learned a lot from our training and expected to have more social media training in the near future. View images from the workshop below.
On Saturday, December 22, 2018, AHC hosted an indoor Youth Soccer Tournament at Commonwealth Stadium Recreation Centre. We had over than 70 youth participate, represented by 12 teams from different communities. The youth enjoyed playing their favourite sport, shared a snack together, made new friends, and shared their experiences. Additionally, some teachers from different schools joined their students at the event to watch the games as motivation.
AHC's indoor youth soccer is a continuation of its regular outdoor season and provides youth with the opportunity to continue staying active while playing their favourite sport all year-round. For more information on AHC's other youth club avtivities click here.
View images from the tournament below.
Our Arabic speaking women group met on January 26th & 27th, at C5 hub, in order to learn how to obtain a class 7 license. On our regular meetings with the Arabic speaking women group, they discussed some ideas to help them progress and achieve empowerment tools. This workshop series of 8 classes was one of the needs that they felt was paramount to feel independent
As a result, we started a women and youth driving instruction for class 7 specifically for women who are struggling to learn and pass this course to be able to get class 7 driver’s license. We included their 14 years and older daughters to attend as well for a complete learning of the laws and regulations of driving in Alberta.
On February 1, 2019, AHC held a successful and informative Tax orientation session for newcomers and refugees. The session highlighted the importance of filing income taxes on time and the various family benefits aviailable.
AHC's free Community Tax Clinic will open in March 2019. Tax clinic appointments can be booked by calling our office: (780) 944-4687.
On January 18th, an orientation for the Canadian Citizen Application workshop was held at AHC, to inform our served families of the documents required and the regulations before starting the application. A large number of attendance was observed with a high number who will require our assistance in filing for their citizenship.
AHC will officially launch its Canadian Citizenship Application Program at the end of February 2019 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am-4pm. Staff and trained volunteers will be able to assist clients in completing their citizenship applications. For more information contact Suraj at: (780) 944-4687.
Luciana was selected the 2019 Artist in Residence through a partnership between AHC and the Edmonton Arts Council. Luciana is a Canadian-Argentinian multilingual poet (Spanish-English-Italian), art historian (MA 2016, University of Alberta), and educator. She will be with us as an Artist in Residence until October 1st, 2019.
Luciana is joining our team to support existing projects and share some of her many talents and community connections with the community members we serve. She is looking forward to meeting with our team and explore opportunities to participate in existing programs, or simply bounce off ideas on how she can best contribute to strengthen the aims of AHC.
Her poems have appeared on online international magazines, (Reflex Fiction, The Write Launch, Your Impossible Voice), in the anthologies Home Connecting Us All (2018), edited by Tololwa Mollel, Looking Back, Moving Forward, edited by Julie C. Robinson, (Mawenzi House, 2019), and in The PolyglotMultilingual Magazine. She guest edited Can Lit: Curating our Canons (The Polyglot, Spring 2018). In 2018 she took part of the Writers Guild of Alberta Borderlines Writers Circle and Margaret Christakos Canopy Project at the University of Alberta (2018) and run the memory and art workshop My Marvellous Museum at University of Alberta's International Week. She has performed at the Edmonton Poetry Festival (2017, 2018), CJSR, and Lit Fest 2018. She has volunteered at the Centre for Family Literacy (2016-2018), and also sits in the Editorial Board of The Polyglot Multilingual Magazine. When she is not leading tours at the Art Gallery of Alberta, she enjoys roaming the city of Edmonton to write poetic responses to art and life in her blog, https://spectatorcurator.wordpress.com/.
When asked about her story she states "Like the clients you serve and some of the people who work here, I was once a newcomer, speaking mostly Spanish since I was born in Argentina. As years went by I completed my undergraduate and graduate education (BA and MA Art History) at the University of Alberta, raised two children, Federico and Bianca who are now university graduates themselves, and began work as a Gallery Assistant at the Art Gallery of Alberta. I also began to write poetry mixing English and Spanish and became acquainted with the Edmonton arts community through my participation in the Borderlines Writers' Group at the Writers Guild of Alberta and as a performer and event organizer at the Edmonton Poetry Festival. What I want to say is that, far from forgetting about my mother tongue, these days it is more present than ever, when I realize that what makes Edmonton a vibrant city is this Babel, this variety of languages heard throughout every place in the city. During my time here I want to allow the community around A4HC to express themselves in their mother tongue, and in English simultaneously, by engaging with the images that surround us, our Art Gallery, our downtown, our public art, writing about those experiences of looking around, grounding themselves in this new place, in whatever language they decide they wish to write."
Luciana will facilitate a number of readings and workshops during her residency with AHC. Details for her first two upcoming events are below, Having gone through the immigration experience, Luciana will fuse creative expression, multilingualism and the immigrant experience in order to provide newcomers with a "creative outlet" to come to terms with their new Canadian home, without leaving behind their roots.
View the activities which Luciana facilitated during her tenure with AHC:
On Saturday, March 2nd, AHC's under 15 soccer team participated in a friendly soccer soccer game with other newcomer communities at Commonwealth Stadium. The youth had a fun time, in safe environment, and made new friends.
On Friday, March 1st, Samya Hasan, Executive Director of the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA) led a presentation about their Intercultural Collaborative project to foster anti-racism and anti-discrimination in communities around Toronto. AHC alongside several other local community-serving agencies were able to engage in a discussion with Samya in order to learn more about how CASSA's success with its anti-racism initiatives can be replicated in Edmonton and the ALberta region.
In addition, participants were able to learn about their experiences involving anti-racism, anti-oppression, and project management training and how they recruited participants from racialized communities.
On Friday, March 8, 2019, AHC participated in City of Edmonton and Women's Initiative Edmonton to celebrate International Women's Day at City Hall.
AHC joined several other service providers and community members to celebrate International Women's Day at City Hall. The event saw many Edmontonians stop by to learn about various resources and initiatives being offered around the city for women. In addition, there was a blessing from an Indigenous elder and speech from keynote speaker
Dr. Wanda Costen, Dean of Business at MacEwan University, among others. The event was a great way to recognize and honour women, including the many within the city who contribute towards many women's initiatives.
For more information on the various women's initiatives available at AHC click here!
On Thursday, March 28th, the Networking Empowerment of Women Program coordinated by Joelle Kacou and facilitated by Ninfa Castellanos, visited the Art Gallery of Alberta. There they met with Edmonton Art Council and AHC's Artist in Residence Luciana Erregue-Sacchi, who works at the AGA. The gallery was packed and all sorts of events were taking place. It was a pleasure to exchange impressions on the modern building built by Randall Stout in 2010. Luciana walked the group through the different exhibitions, sharing in her knowledge of the works on display and inviting the women to partake in two tours run by Gallery Attendant Rita Neyer and Curator Danielle Siemens. The objective of the visit was to spark creativity and dialog around the art in our city. The AGA is FREE to students and seniors, and is FREE on Thursdays between 5:00 and 8:00 PM.
On Saturday March 30, the same group took part in a writing workshop also coordinated by Luciana. The workshop in question was on writing creatively exploring the women's own past, present and future, aided by the words and images in the vision boards they created in previous sessions under Ninfa and Joelle. Luciana has invited the workshop participants to share with the wider community the writing they produced and is looking forward to working with them to edit their pieces towards publication in an anthology, her final artistic project assignment here at A4HC. View images from the gatheirng below.
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