At DDRC, Community Development is fundamental to fulfilling our organizational values and finds ways to meaningfully connect neighbours together and to help foster acceptance, support, appreciation of differences and friendship. It's about creating stronger communities where people care for each other and as a result can work together to build stronger, healthier communities that benefit all.

We firmly believe that everyone belongs in our community. Our work in community development not only looks at ways to include people with developmental disabilities into our communities but ultimately how to include ALL people in our community so that everyone benefits. In an increasingly diverse city, we hope to assist communities in benefiting from the various gifts that people of all ages, abilities, and ethno-cultural backgrounds have to offer.

Initiatives available to the public include:

Cultural and Disability Competency: The Increasing Community Inclusion through Partnership Project

This initiative began in 2001 and is a partnership between DDRC, the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, Heart of the Northeast Solutions Resource Centre, and the Calgary Mennonite Centre for Newcomers.

Each of these partnering agencies had facilitators working with them to bring the voices of their communities forward and to bring information to their communities. These facilitators became known as the Aboriginal and Ethno-Cultural Community facilitators. The group meets twice a month to discuss and learn from one another and to learn from guest speakers about providing outreach and information regarding developmental disability issues within their own cultural communities and how best to provide culturally and disability competent services.

Partnership Outcomes

The three goals of the project include:

• To increase awareness about developmental disabilities within the Aboriginal and Ethnocultural communities and the community at large;
• To connect individuals with disabilities and their families from the Aboriginal and ethnocultural communities to relevant resources/services; and
• To improve the way agencies work with people from diverse cultures who have a disability.

The 22 facilitators are the key to the Increasing Community Inclusion through Partnership project. Collectively, they represent 14 different cultural groups and speak 22 different languages.

• A Parent Support Group for parents from the ethno-cultural communities and a parent support group for aboriginal parents;
• A full day public workshop on Culturally Competent Disability Services;
• Translation and Interpretation Services. With our staff language bank and the bank of languages spoken by the facilitators, DDRC provides translation and interpretation services to the public in the following 24 languages:

The nominal cost for these services is based on individual needs as agreed upon by the translator/interpreter and paid directly to the translator/interpreter.

For more information on these initiatives, please contact Bonny Johannson, community development coordinator, at (403) 685-6412 or via email at bonnyj@ddrcc.com.