Building Community Statement

Building community 1 is to create beyond what we’ve been socialized to know. 2

Building community are acts of love, action and joy. We build community because we believe in our collective future.

Building community is essential for transformational learning. It is how we develop a critical consciousness that will frame how we understand problems, influence the insights we come to and ensure that innovation is rooted in human rights and dignity for all.

Building community is an act of love. 3 Love is what gives building community texture. 4 Love is a kind of complexity that honours and affirms the voices, stories and experiences of the people in the community. As educators we are implicated; implication that fuels what we create together.

Building community takes action to prove that another world is possible. 5 We are relentless. We move towards the discomfort and work our way through its complexity. It is how we transform our current models. It is how we build classroom and school communities that affirm and honour the brilliance of all learners – young and old.

Building community is joy. 6 It is how we go into the future: by liberating our imaginations to co-create a vision of what is possible and acting accordingly.

We engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive community building with love, action and joy.

Because We Love:

We bring our critical consciousness to de-center ourselves and our positionality


We center and affirm the lived experiences of identities that have been negatively impacted by existing systems of oppression


We bring our critical consciousness to our learning

We focus on problem solving that improves the community

When we do the work to de-center, we will center the voice of groups who have otherwise been silenced. Continuously developing our critical consciousness, allows us to be mindful of the work that must always be done. What we, as a community, center matters. What we center needs to affirm the beautiful, intersecting identities of its community members.

Our critical consciousness asks us to consider and act on the ways in which our conventional norms do not meet the needs of the community we are in. When we love, we are ever-evolving our models: it is active, questioning, and unafraid of the change.

Solving problems is an act of building community driven by love because we are not satisfied with the status quo. “When we are filled with love… injustice becomes intolerable.”7 Because we love, we are implicated to come together to better our community.

Because We Take Action:

We are showing that another world is possible

We wrestle with complexity

We hold ourselves to the highest standards of impact

We change

We, as those with power, can take action. When we take action, we are modeling, demonstrating and creating another world where every person can belong.

Change is complex and we must be willing to dive into that complexity. We need complexity to question individual bias, interpersonal struggles and institutional oppression. Without complexity, we will not be able to appreciate, acknowledge and affirm the identities and gifts that every individual brings.

Building community is not easy. We will have conversations and do activities that feel uncomfortable. We co-create the space for feedback where community can hold us accountable for the impact we are creating.

When we know better, we do better. 8 We celebrate the joy and process of change.

Because We Are Joyful:

We take action

We stay accountable by seeking feedback

We reflect

Community building happens through process and in the journey, we find joy. You can’t just learn and reflect. It is not enough. Building community is an intentional, continuous act. As we de-center, we center and affirm every identity and lived experience. We will not be perfect on this journey. 9 However hard, we will find joy because as we transform and build anew, we learn.

Being held accountable strengthens relationships, and through relationships we hold one another accountable. Building community is not a formula that can be applied, year over year. Actively seeking feedback from the community that we are working to build and from those with other perspectives ensures that the work of community building is ongoing and never ending.

Taking meaningful action means that we take the time to reflect and learn. Reflection is core to a deeper understanding of our mindset, our choices and what we choose to prioritize and focus on. Reflection is how we integrate our learning into our actions. That it is never ending is why we must find joy in the process of reimagining and reinventing.

I-Think is an education charity that believes a better world depends upon equipping young people with the skills and confidence to drive change.

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Registered Canadian Charitable Organization number: 74310-5512 RR0001

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