Making Waves - "WOMEN & CED" SPECIAL EDITION

making waves is published quarterly by the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal. It is written by and for people trying to revitalize struggling communities and help marginalized groups improve their overall quality of life. It is the only periodical on CED currently published in North America, and is read by professionals and activists in this field across Canada.

With the guidance of a co-ordinating collective of practitioners, a Special Edition of making waves has been published on the subject of "Women & CED." It is being distributed, in English and French, to a great many women engaged in CED and the social economy, women's organizations, and government departments and agencies, as well as our regular subscribers.

Editorial: Women-Centred CED
by Melanie Conn
Women are on the move in this country, into the workplace, into management and leadership - and into community economic development, as the articles in this edition demonstrate. It's a momentous, complex shift that our public sector tries to regulate "off the side of the desk." Government and the community sector alike would be wiser to learn from CED by women, for women - and help women to do more of it.
Read this article.

8 Things to Know About Women & the Economy
by Ellie Langford Parks
Women’s capacity and the constraints imposed on that capacity are among our best-kept (and not so pleasant) secrets. Read this article.

Women at the Centre
by Doreen Parsons & Barbara Parker
If we are ever to overcome poverty in this country, we must learn to address directly the barriers that separate women from full access to employment, income, security, and independence. Nothing less will do. That was the basis on which the Women's Economic Equality Society was founded in Nova Scotia. It is also a challenge to which WEE has responded with a host of programs over the last decade. Read this article.

A Good Place to Live
by Julie Raby
Here's how the Centre d'Éducation et d'Action des Femmes in south-central Montréal has, over the years, reshaped itself from a family support program to an authentic, women-led agent of neighbourhood recovery. Read this article.

Systemic Change, One Step at a Time
by Rosalind Lockyer, Maggie Milne, & Marina Robinson
The genius of the PARO Centre for Women's Enterprise lies in its ability to develop programs that channel public and charitable funds towards the diverse needs of women in northern Ontario. PARO connects resources with the know-how peculiar to front-line practitioners and to the community sector's research institutions.
Read this article.

Young Women Work
by Molly McCracken
There's a serious mismatch between the needs and aspirations of young, Aboriginal women in Winnipeg's inner-city and the services that community organizations have to offer them. This article profiles the CED programming that will help empower this coming generation of leaders - and shows how the participatory research model itself can begin to identify these leaders and their community allies. Read this article.

Towards a Livelihood
by Janet Murray & Mary Ferguson
Evaluation should be a proactive effort to document results and improve program design and delivery. Eko Nomos is exploring a method of collaborative inquiry that facilitates local control, home-grown solutions, and, in the Sustainable Livelihoods model, a comprehensive understanding of the results people are after.
Read this article.

Enterprising Women
by Melanie Buffel
Vancouver's Enterprising Women Asset Development project reinforces an IDA (individual development account) program with a more comprehensive and self-directed understanding of assets, so women learn to build a sustainable livelihood. Read this article.

Self-Employment or Income Supplementation?
by Susan Clancy & Angela Robertson
Sistering, in downtown Toronto, has chosen to add an economic dimension to its work in women's health and safety. It has done so not just for financial purposes, but as a therapeutic experiment. Given the confusion of public opinion and policy over mental illness, addiction, self-employment, and the sex trade, can CED be made to serve Sistering's constituents? Read this article.

A Win-Win Proposition
by Debra Campbell
The current political environment sentences women-centred initiatives to an interminable, brain-numbing round of application for short-term, narrowly-defined grants. Over the last ten years, the Canadian Women's Foundation has been inventing an alternative, collaborative, multi-year approach to financing creates a learning community among the donors, the grant recipients, and, with time, the whole community sector. Read this article.

What Value Social Enterprise?
by Janice Abbott
Atira Women's Resource Society has found itself well-positioned to make property management serve its greater goals and turn a profit as well. Business has given a creative, independent outlet to much of the time and energy once given over to fund-raising. While recognizing the immense value of this experiment, however, executive director Janice Abbott cautions those who might think it replicable. Read this article.

Strategic Management of Women's Social Enterprise
by Kalyn Culler & Cindy Arnold
A study of women's social purpose businesses in the U.S. reveals that their longevity is due, in part, to three practices: they accommodate the complexity of women's social responsibilities; they enable workers to assume the duties of managers; and they make job quality a matter of paramount importance. Read this article.

Inner-City Co-ops, Crafted by Women
by Louise Champagne
Critical to the survival of two Aboriginal co-ops in Winnipeg, Neechi Foods Co-op Ltd. and The Northern Star Worker Co-op, has been their connection and commitment to the greater community. Read this article.

Women & Social Economy
by Denyse Côté & Danielle Fournier
An instructive, if troubling story about how governments in Québec have "neutered" what started out in 1995 as an intriguing, regionally-administered experiment in social economy. Shorn of women's direct input, multidimensional strategies have given way to self-employment and business programming. Read this article.

Charting the Territory
by Carol Rock & Janet Murray
The Canadian Women's CED Council offers a 4-point framework that would reintroduce gender analysis to Canadian social and economic policies and programs: in the labour market, in social assistance and welfare, in the funding of women's initiatives in CED and Social Economy, and in enterprise development.
Read this article.

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of FedNor, Status of Women Canada, Western Economic Diversification, the Department of Canadian Heritage (Assistance in Interpretation and Translation Program), and Alterna Savings for this Special Edition.