Updates from the Road: DfA on the East Coast

Canada Without Poverty and Citizens for Public Justice are taking Dignity for All: A National Anti-Poverty Plan for Canada to communities across Canada. This week the tour was kicked off with a trip by Michèle Biss of CWP and Janelle Vandergrift of CPJ to the East Coast. Want to know what we’ve been up to? Check out Michèle’s travel log:

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

Today we flew through Montreal and arrived in Charlottetown, PEI for our first workshop tomorrow afternoon.

arrived

Once we landed we stopped by the PEI Provincial Leaders Debate on the Environment.

We made sure that the future Premier of PEI knows about the Dignity for All plan by chatting with each party leader at the end of the debate and giving them a copy of the plan!

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

Had a delicious lunch with our friends Mary Boyd and Myrna Wicks who helped us set up the Charlottetown workshop. We are so grateful for our friends and allies who are helping us connect with local anti-poverty advocates across the country!

lunch

In the afternoon we held our very first workshop. The response was fantastic! About 44 participants came to the session. It was amazing to hear about all the great work being done in PEI by people in the community and to be able to connect with local anti-poverty groups! It was a great kick-off workshop.

workshop

workshop person

After the workshop I convinced Janelle that we should celebrate a very successful first workshop with some Cow’s ice cream.

cows

Thursday, April 23rd, 2015

Today was a travelling day as we took our little rental car across the bridge from Charlottetown to Halifax. Janelle was very excited to see the bridge since she’s never taken it before.

bridge

It was a bit windy.

bridge 2.JPG

Friday, April 24, 2015

This morning we started bright and early to give an interview with Information Morning at CBC Halifax on the Dignity for All workshop tour and Halifax workshop. Listen to the interview here.

CBC studio

After the interview we started the Halifax workshop. We had a very diverse group for this session with a lot of conversation about poverty and the upcoming federal election.

Halifax

Halifax group

Amoung the great participants of this workshop was Wayne MacNaughton, treasurer of the CWP Board of Directors.

Wayne&Michele

After this session we celebrated with our allies in Halifax. Thank you to Stella Lord for helping us set up this workshop!

Halifax friends

After a very successful trip to the East Coast we headed back to Ottawa.

 

Stay tuned for the next stop on the Dignity for All workshop tour in Southern Ontario!

 

Interested in setting up a workshop in your community? Email janelle[at]cpj.ca

Canada Without Poverty is a non-partisan, not-for-profit, charitable organization dedicated to the elimination of poverty in Canada. CWP is here because of your support. We would not be able to continue our work in eliminating poverty without your help. Please consider making a donation to CWP to support our work in ending poverty for everyone in Canada.