Ubuntu Mobilizing Central Alberta is hosting an event called Community, Connections and Calls to Action in Central Alberta to kick off their Collective Alberta Project. The organization is inviting people of all sorts to come together and share their experiences of living in central Alberta.

The Collective Alberta Project has been funded by the Red Deer and District Community Foundation for gender equality to give a space for people to speak out on truth, acceptance, and empowerment. This weekend’s event will provide the opportunity for community members to speak out on their experiences in the community and give them a voice.

“We came up with this project to bring people together in a good space because we recognize so often, especially for people of color, that the focus is on racism. It's on discrimination. It's on a lot of the trauma, but very few times do they get to be the speakers, do they get to share all of their different stories,” said Dieulita Datus, Program Coordinator for Ubuntu Mobilizing Central Alberta.

Four different speakers will be at the event to share their stories on life in our local communities addressing a variety of topics. Ubuntu Mobilizing Central Alberta hopes to walk away from the event with action items to present local councils in central Alberta, or by finding ways of implementing them in the community.  

“This is actually the beginning of the project to get people comfortable in talking about their experiences and living in central Alberta and to talk about the joy too as well as the harm that has caused.  We want to take some of these stories as an action item to city councils and town councils across central Alberta… We would be working on three action actionable items for the next three years with this project. We're looking for three actionable items that will be brought forth by the people themselves,” said Datus.

Beyond empowering people, the organizers are hoping the event will provide the opportunity to create lasting relationships and be a good time for everyone involved. There will also be food and live music.   

Individuals and folks that who are going to attend are going to walk away with relationship building that will take place during these two days so it will not be you get to see each other once and that's it. What our hope is that it will be long lasting relationships that we build and that will continue out of this project out of the conference that we’re holding now,” said Sadia Anwar, Executive Director of Ubuntu Mobilizing Central Alberta.

The event is targeted towards women, femme and non-binary people in the community but all people are welcome. Childcare will be available to allow parents and guardians relief. The event will take place over two days to allow those attending the gathering to get comfortable with one another.

“The first event is Saturday evening, which is a networking, and getting to know you event because usually at these, you don't get to know the people who aren’t sharing the same space with you. We wanted to give folks the opportunity to get to know some of the other ladies and vendors who will be there and then Sunday will be our working day,” explained Datus.

The event will take place on Saturday, May 14 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM and again on Sunday, May 15 from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. For more information, click here.