Hello everyone, happy October! As mentioned in our last post, we at PEACH have been hard at work on a number of projects, and we’re very excited to share an update with you today! Last week we hosted our research and community partners at a two-day workshop for our new NeighbourAble project. The NeighbourAble project is a collaborative effort to develop a tool that assesses the fit between housing and neighbourhood qualities and abilities of individuals with diverse needs and experiences – all through the lens of accessibility.
On Day One, our research partners met to exchange and pool our knowledge, and to discuss and brainstorm the best possible way to go about developing the NeighbourAble tool. On Day Two, our community partners joined to overview the project and discussed the next step. Both days were fantastic opportunities to hear from and collaborate with experts in the fields of housing, aging, and accessibility, and we are so happy with the discussions and results of the workshop. It was so inspiring and exciting to hear from and collaborate with our partners as we begin this new project!
We want to extend a huge THANK YOU to our partners (salutations omitted): Atiya Mahmood (Simon Fraser University), Habib Chaudhury (Simon Fraser University), Kevin Ng (Rick Hansen Foundation), Oskar Jonsson (Lund University), Ren Thomas (Dalhousie University), Sherri Crane (Brightside Community Homes Foundation), Heather McCain (Live Educate Transform Society), Jenny Konkin (Whole Way House), Sonora Szoczei (Whole Way House), Kaitlyn Phillips (Independent Living Nova Scotia), and Adriane Salah (Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia)! We are so grateful to all of them for taking the time to participate in the workshop – both in-person and virtually – and for lending their passion and expertise to the beginning of this exciting new project! We’ll be sure to provide more updates on this blog as NeighbourAble progresses – we can’t wait to share more!