Webinar 11: Reskilling: Building Traditional/Rural Skills
Thursday, March 26th from 12-1pm ADT.
Register Here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-CA/ticketing/webinar-11-reskilling-traditionalrural-skills
For this webinar, we are exploring why reskilling our communities is essential to: creating vibrant local rural communities, reestablishing cultural knowledge, and building meaningful connections to land and place. Traditional and rural skills such as harvesting practices, canning, butchering, and tool repair are important skills required for self-sustaining communities. Without strong community and generational continuity, these can be difficult skills to learn and can make connecting to the land and living rurally isolating and intimidating. Episode 11 in our series welcomes Jennifer DeCoste, Dawn Matheson, and Brynn Baneberry to speak on three community-led reskilling projects: Life.School.House Folk School, Ulnooweg’s Learning Mi’kmaw through traditional skills program, and Crows’ Commons Co-operative’s Queer Craft Skill Shares. Join us for a grounded conversation about the importance in reskilling our communities in traditional and rural skills and the joys and challenges these ambitions can bring.
Robert Cervelli from the Centre for Local Prosperity will moderate and we will begin with an interview/panel discussion, followed by a Q&A.
This webinar series is by donation – our recommended donation is $10, but any amount is appreciated! A Zoom link and calendar invitation will be sent after you register.
Jennifer DeCoste: Life.School.House. https://life.school.house/
Reskilling Through Folk Schools
Jennifer DeCoste is a facilitator and social innovation leader who supports individuals, teams, and communities navigating change work with clarity, trust, and resilience. Her own work is grounded in relational leadership and a deep commitment to collaboration over competition.
Jennifer is the founder of Life.School.House, an internationally scaled non-profit network of barter-based folk schools, and was named the first Atlantic Canadian Fellow with the prestigious “Ashoka Fellowship”. In 2021, she co-founded FireLoch Gathering Place and Retreat, a rural retreat and learning space dedicated to rest, reconnection, and community resilience.
Jennifer currently provides leadership for the Care for Caretakers Fellowship, supporting caregivers and frontline leaders experiencing burnout, and is the lead designer and convenor of the Rethinking Philanthropy network in Atlantic Canada, where she works with funders and community leaders to reimagine more relational, equitable approaches to resourcing social change.
Jennifer lives in rural Nova Scotia with her family and continues to design spaces—both physical and relational—where people can rest, learn, and lead from a place of wholeness.
Dawn Matheson, Ulnooweg Education Centre https://ulnoowegeducation.ca/
Reskilling and Language revitalization
Dawn Matheson is an educator and program developer working with Ulnooweg Education Centre in Mi’kma’ki. She collaborates with Mi’kmaw Elders and community members to design and deliver land-based programming focused on food security, food sovereignty, and Indigenous youth empowerment. Currently completing a Master of Education in Culturally Responsive Pedagogy at StFX University, Dawn’s work centers on integrating Indigenous ways of knowing and being into education systems. Living and raising her family in Millbrook First Nation for the past 30 years, she is a mother and ally that understands the importance to strengthening community-led learning grounded in culture, land, and relationship.
Brynn Baneberry: Crows’ Commons Co-operative https://crowscommons.wordpress.com/
Reskilling Through Queer Craft Skillshares
Brynn is a community-based researcher, part-time farmer, and some-time fiber artist. Brynn identifies strongly as a rural queer and they are a co-founder of Crows’ Commons Co-operative, a land sharing co-op developing rural affordable housing for queer, trans, and disabled community members. They are also a founding board member of The 644 Revitalization Network, a voluntary organization focused on community development in the New Germany area. Brynn co-chairs the New Germany Farmers Market. Their work focuses on the social determinants of health and they are passionate about food systems, small-scale agriculture, and rural community building.
Webinar context:
The world is changing at an unprecedented pace, leaving many individuals and communities with a sense of uncertainty, and in many cases, worry. How do we respond to this rapidly changing world? How do we strengthen our local agency and resilience, socially, economically, and ecologically? In our current context of trade partner volatility and imposed tariffs that threaten to worsen the financial realities within our communities, we want to shine a light on thriving examples of re-localization in our region!
Re-localization is a concept and movement with an aim to become more self-reliant in our production and consumption (while reducing reliance on distant supply chains) in every category — from energy, to food, to finance/investment, to climate solutions, and beyond.
This series will be held on the last Thursday of each month and will explore examples of re-localization across Atlantic Canada.
Watch previous episodes here: https://centreforlocalprosperity.ca/our-projects/webinar-series-building-community-economic-resilience-through-relocalization/
SAVE THE DATES! Next webinar episodes:
- April 30 – How-To Start a Community Fridge
- May 28th – How-To Start a Community Garden + Food Forest
After the Webinar, Join our Community of Practice
The CLP Community of Practice (CoP) is geared towards those who are working within the Community Wealth Building and Re-localization ecosystem and want a place to learn from each other, share strategies, and form new relationships. Building off of each of our monthly webinars, you are invited to a follow-up conversation where we will connect the topic to our own practices and deepen our understanding of community wealth building strategies. A Community of Practice is when a group of folks who share common goals and interests come together to exchange ideas, knowledge, and skills in a peer-to-peer setting. These meetings will be fast paced, lively, and participatory. As part of this CoP, you will also receive a graphic one-page summary of the webinar to add to your toolkit. From Local Procurement to Community Land Trusts, join us in engaging conversations to share personal reflections, brainstorm solutions, and strengthen your practice.
Opt-in to our monthly Community of Practice, today.
SAVE THE DATES! Next Community of Practice meetings:
- April 2nd
- May 7th
We look forward to seeing you there!
Please email Nike at nike@centreforlocalprosperity with any questions
We look forward to seeing you there!