Partner Promotion - The CANDORA Society of Edmonton
The candora Society - Rebecca (Marketing coordinator)
A big part of The Today Centre’s ability to provide our clients connection to vital resources is possible through the partnerships we have with organizations in and around Edmonton. These partnerships allow our Family Violence Specialist team to connect our clients with further support beyond what we are able to provide them here at The Today Centre. Whether it is from finding housing and shelter, legal assistance, English Language Learning programs, applying for EPOs (Emergency Protection Orders), mental health support, or more, the partnerships we make with other organizations enable us to connect our clients to help they need beyond assistance with family violence. These partnerships are vital to the services we provide! And did you know that we have partnerships with over 50 organizations in Edmonton and area? We truly value each and every partnership we make!
Since these partnerships are so important to the work that we do and the service we can provide our clients, we wanted to highlight some of them in a partner promotion series. We sat down with Rebecca, the Marketing Coordinator at The CANDORA Society, to ask a few questions about the services CANDORA provides and what our partnership with them looks like. Check out her answers below!
about the candora society
what’s the history of the candora society? How did the organization start and how long has it been around?
CANDORA started 35 years ago, which is pretty incredible! It started in 1988 and was officially incorporated in 1989, beginning as a community project based on different programs through the university and the city. Two individuals, Bev Sochatsky Downing and Virginia Suave, were introduced to the community just after 1985 as a part of their work for the Consumer Education Project at the Grant MacEwan Community College. From there, by going door to door, a small group of women were recruited to meet weekly at the Echo Valley Tenant Centre and were known as the “Abbottsfield Women’s Project”. Through her work at Beverly Social Services, a woman named Cathy Vereyken began working closely with Bev in 1986 and they formed what became CANDORA out of that group of women. In 1988 they were able to receive funding through the City of Edmonton and move into an office space in what was then the Abbottsfield Mall.
Essentially the founders were looking at in what areas they could make a difference and they stumbled upon North East Edmonton, which is why we serve the Beverly, Abbottsfield, and Rundle neighborhoods. Of course, our reach can go much further as we need to but there are lots of other organizations and services around the city doing wonderful things as well, so it’s important to us to make sure we also stay connected to those organizations while remaining connected to the three communities we mainly serve.
Where does the name ‘candora’ originate from?
The name CANDORA arises from the acronym of “Can Do for Rundle and Abbottsfield”. There is also a really special meaning in Spanish, whom were the primary of individuals we were working with at the time [Ecuadorian background], which means openness and honesty.
Who does CANdora serve? What is the purpose and intent Behind Candora?
CANDORA started for women. They were seeing a lot of women feeling very isolated in their homes and a lot of newcomer individuals and families that were wanting to get out there and be a part of the community and the workforce. But a barrier they were experiencing is that they didn’t necessarily have the skills to get there or didn’t have much of an understanding about how the workforce operates. So, CANDORA began with our flagship program, which is still a pillar program that we offer, and that’s the Employment Preparation program where we welcome low income women who need a little support and connection, to have a seamless transition into the workplace.
CANDORA’s Employment Preparation program graduation.
fFrom that program, CANDORA really evolved, because yes, these women wanted to come in and yes, we wanted to provide them with space, but they were also often the primary caregivers of their homes and were unable to come without their families. This provided a really great and unique opportunity to expand into this wrap-around, holistic service where we are able to provide the parents with the programs and support they are looking for and need, and at the same time also provide their children with other programs and areas of support.
We have really just become a community organization that is super focused on helping individuals and families get the support and access to a hand-up and place they can really feel empowered in what they are doing and what they want to do, while still finding community with each other. One of our biggest messages and mandates is ending the isolation of poverty and that’s where we’re headed.
It’s also really important to us to go out into the community and have community feedback nights, listening campaigns, canvasing in the areas, and understanding what people need, before internalizing that feedback and seeing how we can best make that work for the community.
CANDORA’s Family Playtime program.
How many people does candora regularly see/assist? What is the growth of the organization?
We are certainly growing year over year. One of the biggest barriers in poverty is isolation and so during the pandemic we experienced a bit of a dip because it really shut a lot of our participants in and closed off their ability to access services. With those transitions to online services it was a delicate and fine balance of trying to still serve and support the community while following guidelines. This year and a bit of the previous year, it’s really been about ‘getting back’ to in-person programs and we’ve seen a really exciting flourishing of the community as they start to feel comfortable and okay enough to start coming back to events and programs.
There was this statistic that our Family and Community Resources Manager shared with us; roughly over a year ago we were probably seeing 60 individuals monthly at our Resource Centre, which isn’t including our programs. That number has more than tripled where we are seeing just in our Resource Centre alone, more than 200 participants a month now. Including
our programs, that number is around hundreds, if not thousands, we see monthly. We have also seen a large decrease in our number of ‘no-shows’, which really demonstrates how the community is ready to get back into things, and that really makes serving them and learning how to serve them a lot easier. CANDORA is also a grassroots organization that is very community based, where a lot of our current staff are former participants or live in the community themselves. Not only is that saying, “this is my job and I want to do well at it”, but also “this is my community and I really want to make a difference here”.
What services does candora offfer?
One of our focuses is our Adult Learning programs, simply because they are what we’re founded on and have been a steadfast need that the community has always used. Our Adult Learning programs include our Employment Preparation program, our EmpowerU: Women’s Savings program, and our English Language Learning program, which has a few different learning levels offered. Our Resource Centre houses both our individual and family supports and one of the biggest programs out of that is our preschool, which is fully licensed and operated out of two locations in our community. It’s also free and something we’ve offered since our inception. Our fourth stream is our family programs. Those are our summer programs and parenting programs like babysitting, home alone courses, or family courses like family playtime, family table, and more. One last sort of stream is our community events. We try to host events in the community as much as we can and in different spots to increase accessibility to them.
How are people able to access candora’s services?
Coming to our offices and our Resource Centre is the main way of accessing our services, which is located in room 262 on the second floor of Riverview Crossing. It is a drop-in, so participants can come in anytime during business hours and access supports for housing, food, filling out government documents, or finding supports for getting into our programs or accessing programs in the city. Our Resource Centre is pretty all-encompassing and if we don’t have the answer we’ll refer you to an organization that does. Participants can also call or email our reception desk and Maria, our receptionist and a past participant in our Adult Learning programs (she is wonderful), will happily connect you with the right person. We are also active on social media and we’re happy to field any questions that might come through there.
CANDORA’s Preschool program.
What are your agency’s core values? what do they represent within the organization?
Our core values stem from the idea that individuals can be individuals and they deserve a hand-up, not a handout. Within our relationships with our participants, it’s important to us to build their confidence and not take over the situation, really supporting them by walking beside them and not ‘dragging’ them along. We believe children are a big part of our future, so investing in our children and ensuring that our education models are up to date and coincide with the most recent research really emulates out of our preschool. Working with families is also a really important one because we recognize how much of a big part of the community they are. We also strive to ensure that we promote and provide a diverse and inclusive space; our staff is made up of individuals from all walks of life, from different countries with different knowledge bases, and different cultural communities. We hope that anyone who walks through our doors can identify with our team to at least some degree and feel that safe and inclusive environment they deserve to feel. Especially when someone is trying to access services where it can feel intimidating, it doesn’t help when someone is maybe breathing down their neck or isn’t coming at their perspective from the right way. It’s important that our staff is respectful of those relationships because we feel really privileged when someone comes to us and asks for our support. Our values are aligned with the fact that we want people to feel they can do it themselves and that we are just there as a touch point so that they can keep growing in their own way.
What do referrals to candora organization look like? How do we as a service provider direct an individual seeking assistance to candora’s services?
It’s definitely different on a case by case situation. However, we like to work pretty closely with whomever is transferring the participant over or sharing that information because it’s a group and community effort. It would usually include a connection with our Family and Community Resources Manager Lindsay, and then she would delegate to her staff and Community Facilitators or Resource Workers. We’d hope it’s a seamless transition and a collaborative handoff with the partner organization.
Anything else you’d like to add?
We are in a season of a lot of growth and rediscovery of what CANDORA is and how we can better and best provide for the community, so there are a lot of exciting things coming up that I hope people stay tuned for and join in on! We have a monthly newsletter now that people can stay in touch with. We’re really trying to keep more connected with the community, as CANDORA is very word of mouth and we thrive on that. It’s fascinating to see how connected the community still is and how things really spread like wildfire! We hope you stay tuned for a lot of new things coming up like a new website, more community outreach, and new connections with community partners like The Today Centre.
I think the recent integration of my position as the Marketing Coordinator speaks volumes about the future CANDORA wants to have and the reach that we want to be able to have while fostering relationships, whether those are with current participants, past participants, donors, staff, or alumni. Once you get involved with CANDORA, we’re pretty hard to shake!
get in touch with candora
address
#262 River View Crossing, 3210 118 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T5W 4Y2
phone number
website
social media
Facebook- www.facebook.com/candorasociety / @CandoraSociety
Instagram- www.instagram.com/thecandorasociety / @TheCandoraSociety