The Belonging Initiative - an overview

 Partner Organizations - Belonging Initiative - A National Collaboration to End Isolation and Loneliness

Canadian Abilities Foundation               

www.abilities.ca

PLAN Institute 

http://www.planinstitute.ca/

Canadian Down Syndrome Society       

http://www.cdss.ca/

L’Arch Canada                                            

http://larche.ca/
Laidlaw Foundation                                 

Marsha Forest Centre/Inclusion Press  

Independent Living Canada                    

Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network     

The Belonging Initiative
A National Collaboration to End Isolation and Loneliness

We describe ourselves this way:
We are a national coalition, whose goal is to nurture belonging and end isolation of persons with disabilities. We are guided by a fundamental belief in the importance of human connections and a passionate sense of the possibility that collectively we can make a difference we intend to develop a ground-swell that will lead to a society in which everyone belongs.

Ending isolation will stem the vulnerability to exclusion, poverty, abuse and sickness. Belonging will lead to increased personal control,
safety and security, employment, financial security, well-being, contribution and citizenship.

The Initiative Envisaged:
To tip our systems and institutional structures, we intend to accomplish the following objectives in the next 5 years:

1. Establish a “No One Alone Fund” to stimulate social innovation and finance work to end social isolation;
2. Create a social learning network to share our collective expertise and to develop and disseminate new knowledge;
3. Serve as a catalyst for academic research and analysis on this important social objective;
4. Influence public policy and bring resources to bear on social isolation.

Threads of action (not listed in order of priority):

• Engage in strategic action planning as an iterative process to build momentum, knowledge and supporters that will move us toward the No One Alone Fund.
• Construct communication and information tools to be used by the group to build and share knowledge. This will be the early infrastructure for a Learning Network.
• Generating funds by approaching funders, developing products and services, etc.
• Building the collaborative. Invitation and encouragement to strategic partners that are both outside of and within the disability sector.
• Organization of regional round tables. Generating alliances with local and regional collaborators in at least BC, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic to draw on the resonance that the Belonging Initiative has with others.
• Resourcing and developing an annual poll to garner data on the state of belonging in Canadians' lives.

“Our security will be...in the depths of our friendships.”
— Jean Vanier