by Amy Richardson, CFICE Communications RA

The Community First: Impacts of Community (CFICE) project works closely with it’s community partners to deliver a community first approach. One of those partners is , an organization committed to reducing and preventing poverty in the Windsor/Essex community of Ontario and a community partner of CFICE’s .

Adam Vasey is the Director at Pathway to Potential. ŠPathway to Potential

Adam Vasey, the Director of Pathway to Potential, says the organization looks at the big picture when working to end and prevent poverty.

“Our work has really been focused at changing policies, changing attitudes and really taking a systemic approach to the issue of poverty,” Vasey says.

As a community partner of CFICE, Vasey says Pathway to Potential has see huge value in the partnership.

“Our involvement with CFICE is interesting – it could have been a one-off on a specific project,” he says. “We were really intentional at a grassroots level and thought: ‘Let’s look at building a model that might be sustainable after the CFICE grant.’”

Vasey says Pathway to Potential already had ties with some departments at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, like the Department of Social Work, and saw the CFICE project as a natural fit.

Pathway to Potential wanted to bring everyone together to “develop a truly shared model that wasn’t owned just by the university or just by the community, but rather is mutually beneficial,” Vasey says.

Pathway to Potential has four main pillars: employment and training, literacy and lifelong learning, income security and equality, and food security. Each pillar has it’s own projects, but Vasey said one of the highlights currently is their Living Wage Campaign under the income security and equality pillar.

The logo an employer can display in the Windsor/Essex community if they pay a living wage.

The launched in March 2015 in partnership with the Windsor/Essex Chamber of Commerce. The goal is for employers in the community to pay their employees a living wage.

So far, Vasey says, 28 employers have signed up for the program.

“We need to have a critical mass of living wage employers in our community who can start to put pressure on other employers and tell the story about the benefits of the living wage. That way we start to have a culture of employers who recognize that it’s an investment in our local economy.”

With the rate of inflation and the struggles of today’s society, a minimum wage just isn’t enough, especially for someone trying to get out of poverty.

“There is an assumption for some people that work is always a pathway out of poverty and people are increasingly recognizing that minimum wage, in a lot of communities, is not enough for people to meet all of their basic needs,” Vasey says.

Paying a living wage benefits both the employer and the employee.

“To me, a living wage is one of the biggest areas of impact an employer can have because it’s making that commitment saying we’re investing in you as an employee and we’re committed to ensuring that you will meet your basic needs and not have to use a food bank.”

The employee sees benefits of social inclusion, and enhanced community participation and health, Vasey says, while the employer sees a boost in morale by having happier, more loyal employees with less turnover.

One of the ways they were able to get so many employers on board with the project is because they are well known in the community. They are the go-to for questions about poverty or evidence of poverty for the media and community members.

They’ve worked hard to change the perception that changes to poverty can only happen from a top-down level.

“I think the role of Pathway to Potential is to ensure a community-driven approach and ensure we have the capacity and relationships at the local level to do the work,” Vasey says.

“If you don’t have those, the higher level policy changes aren’t necessarily going to make a difference in the community.”

Students are playing their part in Windsor’s Poverty Reduction movement in many different ways. Below are just a few examples of how students are making a difference.

• Charity Is Good, Justice Is Better: Mobilizing Campus and Community against Poverty

Charity is Good, Justice is Better Logo

On October 2, 2015, Pathway to Potential (P2P) hosted the event Charity Is Good, Justice Is Better: Mobilizing Campus and Community against Poverty at the University of Windsor. The workshop brought together students, faculty and community members with the shared goal of campus-community engagement (CCE) and action efforts to fight local poverty. Nearly one-third of individuals who signed up for the event were students and three out of the ten panelists were students at the University of Windsor. Some of the issues discussed include challenges surrounding poverty within Windsor-Essex County and how the University of Windsor could implement more internships and campus volunteer opportunities to strengthen CCE. InteractiveĚýbreakout sessions occurred on various topics such as implementing a living wage, making poverty a federal election issue, food justice and missing and murdered indigenous women. For more information on becoming involved for the second Justice is Better workshop, email msw@pathwaytopotential.ca.

• Windsor SOUP

Windsor SOUP was created through collaboration with P2P and Enactus, which is a group of University of Windsor students determined become a major catalyst for economic change through community-focused and entrepreneurial-based projects. Windsor SOUP facilitates creative initiatives or projects that aim to better the Windsor-Essex community in the areas of art, urban agriculture, social justice, social entrepreneurship, education and technology. With a minimum $5 donation, attendees of Windsor SOUP receive soup, salad, bread and a vote for which of the presented community projects they would like to see win a microloan. The night facilitates networking with community members by sharing resources and a nutritious meal.

Check outĚýEnactus’ and their .Ěý

• The Community-University Partnership for Community Development, Research and Training (CUP)

Established in 2005, CUP aims to increase available resources to transform low-income neighbourhoods in Windsor by addressing the psychosocial health conditions of its residents. CUP’s mission focuses on building community resilience and creating a supportive, healthy environment for residents. CUP’s primary pinnacles include: 1) university civic engagement; 2) community/resource engagement; 3) interdisciplinary field education/experiential learning; and 4) student/tenant partnerships and leadership development. Students in the Social Work program at the University of Windsor provide residents with access to health and social services. These students are given the opportunity to facilitate leadership development, self-advocacy, empowerment and volunteerism among residents and individuals living outside these neighbourhoods. For more information on CUP, please .

• Using Campus-Community Engagement to Build Capacity for Poverty Reduction

In collaboration with ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, P2P and their interns are developing a project as part of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) initiative. Specifically, the purpose of the Using Campus-Community Engagement to Build Capacity for Poverty Reduction project is to explore opportunities for leveraging and coordinating resources within and between the community and university to build the local poverty reduction strategy’s capacity for research, evaluation and policy influence. The project involves consultations with key stakeholders, a comprehensive scan of resources and research on relevant campus-community engagement (CCE) models. Currently, P2P and their interns are in the process of developing a curriculum with a focus on building capacity for policy advocacy as well as exploring a curriculum/mentorship model for high school students within Windsor to inspire thinking beyond the charity model.Ěý

• Social Justice Externship

Adam Vasey, Director of P2P, recently completed a Social Justice Externship for Windsor Law that built on a 2014 Law and Poverty Policy Externship Pilot providing law students with a unique opportunity for experiential learning, research and developing policy initiatives. Students were involved with various projects, including living wage, food security, affordable transportation and social enterprise, and they helped to coordinate two candidate engagement sessions on these issues in the lead-up to the municipal election. Vasey’s 2015 report found that the vast majority of Windsor Law survey respondents (93.9%) felt there is a need for additional law placement opportunities and a need for placement opportunities specific to social justice (78.8%). Given the above recommendations, the University of Windsor has recently announced it will hire an Externship Professor, who will be paramount in the success of the Externship program. For more information on the Social Justice Externship, please contact Adam Vasey.