UPPER BIG TRACADIE, N.S. — Work was already underway for Remembrance Day in Upper Big Tracadie in March, 2020.
The Upper Big Tracadie Seniors Action Club had the idea to bring members of all ages from their remote community together under one roof to create hand-knitted poppies for the Guysborough legion.
In a region where access to transportation is a major barrier to social inclusion, organizers had to ensure that anyone wanting to participate could get a drive.
“It’s such a huge rural area,” said Mary Desmond, co-chair of the Guysborough Community Health Board and president of the Antigonish/Guysborough Seniors Council. “There’s no public transportation, it’s an ageing population and a lot of people don’t drive or don’t have cars. We depend on our neighbors to drive us here and there, or on people to pay private taxis.”
Despite that barrier the first gathering of The Poppy Project saw 30 people attend.
Originally, they had only planned to hold three meetings between march and November, but after the response they’d gotten it was decided to make it a monthly gathering.
As far as the Poppy Project brought people under one roof to share in an activity, Desmond knew it was a success.
“To me that was conquering social isolation and accomplishing social inclusion.”
The Poppy Project is just one community-led initiative taking on the challenge of social isolation, and in February a number of these groups came together to share ideas.
“We were all coming to the table with our own community initiatives of how we were addressing the problem,” explained Desmond who on February 5, attended a meeting St. Martha’s Regional Hospital attended by other community health board representatives and other interested parties.
“We were all coming to the table with our own community initiatives of how we were addressing the problem,” explained Desmond who was at the meeting along with Sarah O’Toole, Partnerships Coordinator with the Pictou Antigonish Regional Library.
“Out of that meeting, with so much brought to the table, the group decided to host an educational event at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre.”
The event called SPARK a Connection was originally scheduled for June 22, but now organizers are expecting to postpone.
When it happens, it will provide attendees the opportunity to hear from community staff, volunteers and organizations as they showcase their own grass-roots projects to tackle social isolation—something which Desmond says will be more relevant than ever once social distancing restrictions get lifted.
“Social isolation isn’t going to go away once the virus is gone,” she said. “I think people will realize it’s a bigger problem than they thought and will be more open to sitting down at the table. We all have a taste of it now, and we all have the time to come up with some solutions.”
