Civic Lab Events
What might change if we treated stories as important and shared civic infrastructure helping us to innovate futures together?
Generative Journalism for a Story‑Powered Future
A CivicLabs series to equip you to gather, make sense of, and activate stories that shift the narrative to what’s possible for community building
In this three‑part Civic Lab series, participants will explore the theory and practice of generative journalism, develop practical skills for hearing and weaving community stories, led by Peter Pula the creator of Generative Journalism.
The Halton Housing Action Network working meetings to continue our collective effort for housing for all on Monday April 13th - choose from 10 am and 6pm.​
Civic Labs Podcast
Formerly the Community Data Watch Podcast, this new iteration will feature broader conversations that will include, but are not limited to, local data and community stories, community initiatives, leaders, and perspectives from lived experience.
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The Belonging Project
This project has been a year-long deep dive into experiences of belonging across Halton in partnership with our friends at Grandmother’s Voice, Our Kids Network (OKN), the Halton
Diversity & Equity Roundtable (HEDR), and Community Development Halton (CDH).​
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Together we explored what belonging meant to each of us as community members, advocates, researchers, and community developers. We established a survey (760 responses) and stories project on our blog page to collect the experiences of our neighbours across our region and hosted a
forum to explore the themes and trends together in community.
Out of the stories we pulled out key themes that reflected the dimensions of belonging and the way that they intersect and influence lived experience.
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Here are some of the quotes:​
"Just come as you are, you know? There's a joy that spreads from one person to another. And I think we could use a braver and more invitational society."
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"To me, belonging means feeling seen, valued, and truly connected. It matters so much because I believe that, at our core, we are meant to move through life together, not alone."​
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Youth Engagement Research Project
From March 2025 to February 2026, CDH engaged 10 youth volunteers in the Youth Engagement Research Project. The project explored the facilitators and barriers to the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) 40-hour community involvement requirement.
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This requirement came into effect in 1999, and has never been evaluated in the history of the requirement! To the best of our knowledge, this project was the first evaluation of this youth-centric policy across Canada, and definitely the first evaluation that engaged youth in the leadership of the research project.
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Housing Advocacy
Out of our first ever National Right to Housing Day Forum in November 2024, a Housing Advocates group made up of friends and neighbours across faith communities came together. Together with community partners and neighbours, this growing coalition has taken part in letter writing campaigns, elections advocacy, council delegations, documenting the impacts of housing legislation, and creating connections with developers and decision makers across Halton.​
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​As Halton's capacity builder, CDH continues to support the efforts of this growing coalition as it works to ensure the right to housing for all. In February 2026, 3 youth volunteers joined the growing community of engaged citizens and volunteers to help support!
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We've created three different working groups that you can self-elect into:
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YIMBYism and Storytelling
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NIMBYism
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Municipal Election Engagement
