The GTEC Community-based, Collaborative Model entails collaboration with a pre-existing structure of community-based organizations with a central Climate Response Centre serving as a source of programming, consultation and support, as well as an interconnecting hub. The spokes of this model consists of community social service organizations.
The GTEC Community-based, Collaborative Model: A Hub and Spoke Approach
The community social service sector has long-standing, well established and constructive relationships with communities across the province, as service providers and sources of information, as well as, in some instances, community-based education. These organizations also have established relationships with other organizations in their communities such as local BC government teams, hospitals, community centres and municipal governments. Working with this pre-existing network of community organizations, offers a cost-effective and time efficient methodology.
Collaboration, Caring and Community
Community social service organizations typically exemplify values such as collaboration, caring and community, increasingly recognized as key elements of a society-wide response to the impacts of climate change. An important feature of this project is to contribute to an all of society approach by strengthening the resilience and capacity of community-based organizations in a way that complements government’s efforts to address adaptation and resilience.
Proof of Concept
The proof of concept of this model is the current Phase II of the Building Resilience project referred to above. GTEC has already been approached by several other non-profit organizations with expressions of interest about this project. Through this project organizations will become better equipped to advance the resilience of the communities that they serve. Based on the recognition that they are significantly more susceptible to the impacts of climate change, this project will take steps toward further opening the lens of climate change preparedness to include Indigenous nations and equity-denied groups.
A socially just and effective community response to climate change will be deeply interwoven with decolonization and Indigenous reconciliation. We recognize that this work takes place on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Indigenous Nations of BC and explicitly acknowledge their longstanding stewardship of these lands. Indigenous knowledge will be incorporated in the framing of the results and recommendations.