Building on more than 10 years of working to reduce poverty across priority neighbourhoods in Saint John, New Brunswick, a team of community leaders from all sectors recently hosted a Living SJ learning event.  Living SJ is a Social Renewal Strategy for the city and a call to action of government, business and community leaders to invest in systems change with a focus on quality neighbourhoods, cradle-to-career education success, employment readiness and keeping families healthy.   

Getting to the gathering was no small process.  Over the last 2 years a team has been reviewing a myriad of strategic reports, hosting community conversations and focus groups, and synthesizing results.  Through this effort, the following priorities were identified as creating a compelling reason to catalyze the community: 

•  Poverty:  29% of our children live in poverty.  There are 3,650 children and youth living in poverty.

• Housing:  more than 1,000 people are on the waiting list for subsidized housing in the Saint John Region. 

• Education:  78% of our students in Grade 2 meet appropriate literacy levels – that’s 12% lower than the NB Department of Education’s target.

• Wellness:  30% of our adults report challenges in mental health.  More than 1/3 of our children are overweight or obese.  Saint John has the highest rate of family violence in Canada. 

•  Employment:  68% of our youth don’t see themselves living and working in the region 10 years from now. 

Living SJ Social Renewal Strategy, December 2014

The Living SJ co-chairs shared the four priorities with ambitious targets and sought feedback from the community members on moving these priorities forward in a collective way.  This Living SJ infographic makes the case why moving forward is so imperative. 

Living SJ is an emerging Canadian example of a cross-community effort to move the needle on collective impact and community change.  We will be watching how this unfolds over the next five years.