From a citizen who strives to be a good neighbour to the proprietor of a downtown business, One City Peterborough is aiming to reach a broad audience and foster community-building in Peterborough in 2025 by offering a series of educational courses for the public.
One City Peterborough is a non-profit charitable organization that supports people who have experienced homelessness and/or criminalization on their journey towards inclusion in society. The organization has developed a range of training sessions it’s now offering through a semester system to anyone who is interested in making a positive difference in the community.
The first session of 2025 kicks off on Wednesday, February 5 with “Myths About Homelessness: How to have meaningful conversation with those who disagree.”
Jenny Kennedy-Bloom, One City’s community development coordinator, told kawarthaNOW about the evolution of One City’s community education courses, and highlighted her aspirations for the upcoming sessions.
“Our hope for these courses is that they offer people learning opportunities that support them in building community, being the person they want to be in community, and feeling equipped to participate in advocacy and community action,” Kennedy-Bloom said. “The target audience is anyone who finds themselves in community and wanting to be a good neighbour.”
This includes helping-professionals, community advocates and volunteers, downtown business owners and residents, faith communities, and community members of all kinds, she noted.
“It is important to us that the courses be pay-what-you-can so that they are accessible to anyone. We want education to be an accessible and useful tool to all who want it.”
Through its community education sessions, One City strives to create spaces where participants can learn, engage, and act together.
Its workshops, courses, and events are focused on creating community, thinking about what it means to be good humans, and providing practical skills around advocacy and action. One City also brings in guest facilitators each semester to offer courses in other areas such as art, music, and grief as they apply to the community.
The offering of community education was born out of the One City’s leadership team’s desire to create meaningful training opportunities for staff.
“We developed our core courses — de-escalation techniques, non-violent communication basics, and self-regulation in the presence of trauma — because we wanted our staff to feel equipped to do direct-service and supportive work and to not burn out while doing it,” Kennedy-Bloom explained. “We also wanted to be a source for advocacy training in the community because advocating for systemic change is part of our mission and we wanted to equip ourselves and others to do that work.”
The idea to offer the courses to the broader community came in 2022 when One City realized it had developed training that could benefit its partner agencies and community members doing similar work.
“We decided to create a semestered program where we could offer our core courses a couple of times a year and add to the course line-up as we connected with other facilitators in the community or developed more workshops,” Kennedy-Bloom said.
During the first session on February 3, which runs from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Trinity Community Centre at 360 Reid St. in Peterborough, participants will learn about homelessness by dispelling some of the common assumptions and biases, which are often rooted in fear and discomfort rather than hatred, according to the course description.
Participants will also learn how to have these conversations with others, and how to approach difficult interactions through which opposing views can hinder connection, compassion, and understanding.
Next up is “Listening Rather Than Force: Techniques in De-escalation,” which runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday, February 10 at the Trinity Centre. Those who take part will learn about techniques that can be used to de-escalate situations that could become violent, in a way that instead builds connection.
“What we know from participant feedback is that many people take what they learn in these courses and apply it to themselves and their family first,” Kennedy-Bloom said. “The impact can be big, even if the actions start small. It is really exciting to see people feel encouraged to make change in their world.”
For an overview of all the upcoming courses and to register, visit www.onecityptbo.ca/communityeducation.
