Five Year Plan & Sustainability Vision
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New Model, New Thinking
The direction, progress, and goal of the MCDA’s ‘sustainability vision’ can be described as follows:
- converting the school into the Coastal Discovery Centre as sustainability relative to the community;
- converting to alternative energy as sustainability relative to the Centre - and by extension to the community – as well as the to environment; and
- converting to a new model of community socio-economic development as sustainability relative to all communities (especially rural Cape Breton).
New Thinking in the Community
CBCEDA anticipates community development “champions” will use its strategic plan to find their niche role in economic development.We hereby announce we’ve found ours: the articulation and provision of a community socio-economic development model that brings to the forefront of the development paradigm a new emphasis on people, place and process; and that considers as an inseparable whole the ecology of social relations constituted by economy, environment, and humanity.
New Thinking by Funders & Government
The importance yet contradiction of community-funding partnerships under the current model is apparent. For us, the Centre has always been primarily social in nature, with important economic spin-offs and benefits, both short-term (creating local jobs, for example) and long-term as described above; for our funders, the Centre has always been seen as an exercise in economic development, providing important social benefits in the process.
Both agree that the community’s economic and social well-being are inseparable. The difference lies in where the balance is found. A ‘humanized’ community socio-economic development model would be concerned not with cutting ties – which the ‘independence’ of self-sufficiency amounts to – but with making connections.
Considering the contribution made by the not-for-profit/voluntary sector – much of which operates in rural areas where it is both most needed and, as a result, most stressed – government is as ‘dependent’ on the voluntary sector as vice versa. Put in positive terms, the two are interdependent.
It’s time to take stock of the very real – indisputable – interconnectedness of peoples and places: both the good that results from an acknowledgement of our interdependence (‘synergy’), and the harm that comes from attempts to sever it (‘dis-integration’).
Our Association has pledged to work with out-of-area communities – Louisbourg, Port Morien, Glace Bay and others – to integrate Main-à-Dieu into a wider ‘community of communities’ than is now the case – a development that will have significant economic, marketing and social benefits for the region.
The Association also believes it can play a broader educational role by demonstrating the ways that the costs of economic development can be dramatically reduced by thinking creatively about alternative energy solutions. This, we believe, will be of great benefit to the provincial government as it works toward its own green initiatives for the province more generally.
We need to know that our various levels of government recognize our efforts and will assist us – partner with us - in their realization. We look forward to contributing to, in CBCEDA’s words, “a unified and cooperative development program.”
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Posted by Mike Targett | Email a comment
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