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Community Works Manitoba Inc. is a not-for-profit community development and training organization based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Over the past 30 years we have worked with program administrators, front line staff and community volunteers in First Nation communities and urban social service agencies to develop and deliver a wide range of economic and healing and wellness initiatives.
Whether the focus is on economic or social challenges, we always begin by inviting participants to share stories from their own lives and from the lives of their ancestors. We believe that it is our own stories that hold the wisdom we need to create safer, more just, and healthier futures.
VISION
Community Works envisions a society in which individuals, families, and communities apply their stories, wisdom, and strengths to address critical challenges and to help build safer, more just, and healthier futures.
MISSION
We create spaces for addressing challenges and celebrating accomplishments through sharing stories and diverse perspectives. Our workshops provide individuals and groups with tools to imagine new possibilities and engage in individual and collective change.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Digital Storytelling Workshop: June 14-16, 2023
AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER
Meeting in the Story Circle
IN THIS WORKSHOP skilled and experienced facilitators will support you as you explore a significant personal story, and use words, images and sound to bring your story to life in a short video.
OUR STORY WORKSHOPS bring people together in the safety of the story circle, support personal and collective transformation, and connect participants to their creative spirits.
THE WORKSHOP PROCESS we follow is used internationally by health and social service providers, educators, and librarians, and by individuals and groups committed to building safer, healthier and more just communities.
THIS WORKSHOP IS FOR health and social service providers and the people they support, teachers and students, artists and elders, and anyone who has a personal story that is waiting to be told.
MANY KINDS OF STORIES can be told: stories about life challenges and accomplishments; recovery and discovery; our relationship to the natural world; injustice and the hunger for justice; love stories and memorial stories ...
WORKSHOP DETAILS
INSTRUCTORS: Frances Ravinsky and Robert Miller
PREREQUISITES: None
DATES: June 14, 15 & 16, 2023
TIME: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
LOCATION: Winnipeg, MB (address provided on registration)
CAPACITY: 6
*TUITION: $500 + GST (First Nations GST exempt)
Registration closes 1 week before start date.
UPLIFTING OURSELVES THROUGH STORIES: Muslim women's identity stories across cultures and migration histories.
Community works is pleased to announce a new partnership with Winnipeg Central Mosque and Snow Angel FIlms to deliver a digital storytelling project.
The project will provide Muslim women from diverse cultures with opportunities to listen deeply to themselves and to each other as they explore personal stories through words, images and sounds. Participants will learn how to use digital editing software to integrate these story elements into short video stories.
If your organization would like to host a similar project, just get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
And we would be please to deliver a presentation on the use of multi-media storytelling as a transformative resource for healing and wellness, education and social change.
CELEBRATING TREATIES WITH PUPPETS
The annual We Are All Treaty People Celebration returns to The Forks on Sunday September 17th, 2023 for an in-person gathering for ceremonies, speakers, music, traditional crafts sale and stations for do-it-yourself crafts activities. Community Works will be there to teach puppet-making to people of all ages and many backgrounds. Here are some photos from last year's Treaty Celebration.
RECENT EVENTS
STORIES AS COMPASSES:
Navigating Our World Through Our Own Stories
Frances Ravinsky from Community Works recently delivered a Zoom presentation about Digital Storytelling and screened some sample stories at Creativity Cafe.
Listen to the presentation here >>
The digital stories that Frances screened during her presentation can be viewed by clicking the thumbnails below:
Ice Cube
White As a Wall
Home
IN OUR OWN VOICE:
Honouring our Healing Journey
In April 2023 Community Works returned to Thrive Community Support Circle for 6 days of art making (taught by Winnipeg painter Cori Jaye Ettienne www.corijaye.com) and digital storytelling. Participants shared personal stories through art around themes of trauma and reclamation.
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF CCED-Net GATHERINGS
Community Works facilitated a workshop called At the Heart of the Matter: Digital storytelling as a resource for building safer, more just, and healthier futures. Frances Ravinsky was joined by storytellers Carolina Meneses, Dakota Nadeau and Nyamet Obeing. The 2022 Gathering took place at St. John's High School on October 21st, and focused on how to use the power of joy to connect to each other and strengthen our organizations and movements.
"We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we’re here; you, me, us, together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other, we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship – we change the world, one story at a time…”
- Richard Wagamese
Featured Digital Story
Caring for water: conversations with my mother and with the water meter man