Hey everyone, the City of Kelowna is looking for YOUR thoughts on their replacement for Parkinson Recreation Centre with the new Kelowna Community Campus — check it out!
Have Your Say In…PRC!
National Indigenous Peoples Day JUNE 21
Hey everyone, it’s National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21 — learn more about National Indigenous Peoples Day here, find out about National Indigenous History Month (June) here, and share what’s going on in your community in the comments!
National Indigenous Peoples Day takes place on the summer solstice, June 21. It’s a special occasion to learn more about the rich and diverse cultures, voices, experiences and histories of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
Learning about Indigenous Peoples, places and experiences is a step forward each Canadian can take on the path to reconciliation.
https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/celebrate-canada/indigenous-peoples-day.html
Happy Pride Month 2022!
You can check out events here – let us know what’s going on in your community in the comments! Let’s celebrate communities that WELCOME EVERYONE!
CLBC Update for Individuals & Families…
…is now available! Click here.
SPOTLIGHT: Caregiver communities
Hey everyone, we’re focusing our posts on CAREGIVERS and resources for caregivers this month. We know that one of the challenges faced by many caregivers is…finding sustainable ways to integrate connecting with other caregivers into a busy schedule.
While we’ve posted about the importance of self-care to caregivers, we wanted today’s discussion to be more focused on how connecting with others who have caregiving experience can help fight feelings of isolation and loneliness. With the COVID-19 pandemic changing how we all connect safely with one another, feeling isolated and lonely is more common than in the past. So, since we’ve posted about many ways for caregivers to connect, what’s are we bringing to the table today to try out?
Podcasts! If you haven’t listened to a podcast before, they are like individual radio shows and are usually released in episodes. Podcasts typically target a topic per episode. These podcasts in particular are designed to be relevant to the caregiving experience by those who put them out into the podcast-universe:
- Caregivers Out Loud: A Podcast by Family Caregivers of BC A space to connect, listen and learn with other caregivers.
- The Giving Tree Podcast by Amanda Rocheleau (BSW, MSW, RSW) This podcast is for helping professionals and personal caregivers. … talking openly and honestly about the true hardships of providing care to others while we also talk about sustainable solutions to self-care and personal wellness.
Besides the more obvious benefits of podcasts (running for a set amount of time per episode; covering a breadth of information about a given topic; facilitating discussion with and between people who have relevant experience) they can be a great tool to help caregivers feel that their struggles, challenges, and successes are genuinely seen, acknowledged, and respected. And – we hope! – support caregivers to feel a little less lonely and a little less isolated!
Let us know in the comments if you have a favorite podcast.
Rights & Responsibilities…
Hey everyone, as you know we’ve been posting topics for Community Inclusion month and last week we talked a bit about self advocacy.
A really important part of self advocacy is standing up for your own rights. We have a whole page that talks about rights and responsibilities here, complete with help to understand different kinds of rights, like:
- the Right to Say No
- the Right to Vote
- the Right to Love
- the Right to Have a Job
- the Right to Believe
- the right to be safe — especially, help to Say No To Abuse
Everyone has rights as a person in Canada, and rights as a person in BC. If you have a disability and you are getting supports, you also have rights as a person who uses the services of Community Living BC (CLBC).
With all those different kinds of rights in mind, we thought this would be a good time to remind ourselves about this awesome conversation that helped explore rights and responsibilities:
If you’ve got questions about rights and responsibilities, please let us know or leave us a comment.
It’s PRIDE WEEK!
Hey everyone, October 24-31 is PRIDE WEEK in Kelowna, and there are a whole bunch of events going on to celebrate 25 Years of Kelowna Pride! You can check it all out here, including the bike derby, trans and non-binary storytelling evening and social, pride festival and pride cabaret.
You can find Kelowna Pride Society on Instagram at the link below, on Facebook here, and you can read about Pride Week on KelownaNow.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVQb3rgJCdP/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
SPOTLIGHT: Local Documentary Wins!
Hey everyone, this past weekend marked the screening of the documentary “Shiny Objects – The Conductor with ADHD” in Kelowna. As CBC News reported back in August, the documentary won the New York International Film Awards’ best inspiration film title! The filmmaker, Gillie Richards, found out while she was making the documentary that she also had ADHD.
Check out more information in the video posted by Castanet about the documentary:
COMMUNITY INCLUSION MONTH: Where we’ve been
Hey everyone, we’ve been posting a series as part of Community Inclusion Month. We explored a bit last week about how we can participate in community while we all focus on keeping each other safe and healthy, using tools like technology and online communities.
We also talked about how everyone has a right to be included in their community – and, that this is part of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
So, why are we talking about it again this week?
We are looking at where we’ve been so that we can see how much progress we’ve made.
Progress on the road to community inclusion — like the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — can take a long, long, long time. That UN Convention we were talking about? That only happened 15 years ago, in 2006. It’s important to remember what things were like for people with disabilities at the start of the disability rights movement.
If you’re interested in hearing more about what it was like to fight for the rights of people with disabilities, you can check out this video featuring Judith Heumann (a disability rights activist from the US). YouTube is a great resource to find other people with disabilities sharing their stories and experiences.
When we see people and organizations (like CLBC) promoting community inclusion, human rights, and the rights of people with disabilities, we are seeing how far we’ve come thanks to the work of self-advocates all over the world (like Judith) — and we celebrate their achievements as part of Community Inclusion Month!
Small Business BC celebrates Accessibility!
Hey everyone, Small Business BC is celebrating Accessibility Month through September by offering a month of free business education webinars that feature ASL interpretation and closed captioning. Their webinar “HOW TO REMOVE BARRIERS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AT YOUR BUSINESS” is running on Monday (Sep. 27) from 10:30 am – 12:00 pm. You can find out more (and register) here. Know someone who owns a business who could use some help making it more accessible? Send them the link!
Their website also has information about workplace accessibility grant funding. You can check out more information via YouTube as well:
Find out more about what Small Business BC has to say about accessibility on their Accessibility Month webpage, here.
