Canadian Red Cross and The Resilience Institute launch new program to promote readiness

Roots for Resilience to engage with small, rural and Indigenous communities

OTTAWA, June 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Canadian Red Cross and The Resilience Institute are pleased to announce a new partnership that aims to strengthen the climate resilience of small, rural, and Indigenous communities across Canada.

Roots for Resilience is a new pan-Canadian program that will promote adaptive and risk reduction actions, while elevating diverse voices across Canada to highlight the meaning of resilience, agency and duty in the climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction space.

By engaging small, rural, and Indigenous communities across Canada, the Roots for Resilience team will work with communities at their current level of readiness to address climate change and risk reduction. The aim of the program is to empower people and communities to better understand the risks and challenges they face, with the goal to identify existing resources, knowledge, and skills that can be leveraged to address these challenges by taking informed action.

The Roots for Resilience initiative will take a flexible, community-centered approach to building resilience, including:

• Engagement: actively engaging with diverse community members to set objectives, goals, and priorities for risk reduction and climate adaptation, ensuring an equitable and inclusive approach to bring diverse voices community to the forefront;
• Planning: working together to better understand and identify the unique risks, strengths, and vulnerabilities that are specific to community members. Through participatory and collaborative planning, identify opportunities and actions to enhance individual and community resilience and create a plan to advance resilience to climate impacts;
• Action: advance informed actions to reduce risk by co-developing and implementing community-driven action plans;
• Learning Together: growing stronger together by encouraging reciprocal knowledge sharing on strengthening approaches to resilience; and
• Inspiring: learning and sharing the attributes which exemplify individual and collective strength through a collection of diverse narratives and visual arts in the Stories of Resilience – Voices across Canada activities.

The program is founded on the belief that communities themselves are best placed to identify risks, strengths, vulnerabilities, and the actions they need to take to become more resilient in the face of climate change. Communities must be at the centre of their own resilience journey.

Quotes:

“In the face of escalating climate crises, complacency is not an option. The Roots for Resilience program embodies our collective call to action, fostering community empowerment and knowledge-sharing. By amplifying diverse voices, especially those in small, rural, and Indigenous communities, we’re addressing climate challenges, and also celebrating the resilience, agency, and responsibility inherent in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.”
Amy Avis, Chief, Humanitarian Services, Canadian Red Cross

“This unique partnership with the Canadian Red Cross epitomizes our commitment to reducing systematic barriers to resilience and in strengthening proactive solutions to the complex challenges of climate-induced disasters that are already wreaking havoc on communities across Canada.”
Laura S. Lynes, President / CEO, The Resilience Institute

“The Town of Hinton in partnership with the Resilience Institute recently completed a Climate Risk Assessment that validated much of what our community is already witnessing when it comes to climate hazards. We are looking forward to an ongoing partnership and in potentially developing a Climate Adaptation Plan using a disaster risk reduction lens, that is representative of diverse voices in and near our community.”
Debbi Weber & Winston Rossouw – Town of Hinton Strategic Projects Team

“In the face of new and evolving climate threats facing our community such as drought, wildfire, and the associated impacts on food security and the safety of our people, the activities through Roots for Resilience program are vital steps in safeguarding our land, our culture, and our health and wellness for generations to come.”
Noreen Plain Eagle, Piikani Nation, southern Alberta

“This collaboration has been instrumental in creating opportunities for essential discussions and consultations which help our Indigenous community move towards more effectively adapting to and reducing the risk of climate related disasters in our region. By having this dialogue built on grassroots, community engagement in culturally sensitive ways—we see nothing but continued success and growth through this initiative.”
Patrick Park-Tighe, Executive Director, People of the Dawn Indigenous Friendship Centre (Stephenville, NFLD)

About the Canadian Red Cross:
Here in Canada and overseas, the Red Cross stands ready to help people before, during and after a disaster. As a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – which is made up of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and 191 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies – the Canadian Red Cross is dedicated to helping people and communities in Canada and around the world in times of need, and supporting them in strengthening their resilience.

About the Resilience Institute:
The Resilience Institute is a national, charitable organization that collaborates with diverse partners on knowledge co-creation and applied research to minimize the suffering caused by climate change impacts. A cornerstone of the Resilience Institute’s work is to weave together multiple perspectives to strengthen strategies that address the complex challenges of climate change. For more information visit: resilienceinstitute.ca

Media Contacts:

Canadian Red Cross                                 
English: 1-877-599-9602                         
French: 1-888-418-9111

The Resilience Institute
English and French: Amica Antonelli
amica@resilienceinstitute.ca
1-825-570-0431