A New Direction for Fanshawe Pioneer Village: Part II

Posted on: December 6, 2011 by Sheila Johnson Subscribe

The Trillium Community Gallery in the Spriet Family Visitor Centre will be dedicated to telling the story of the immigrant experience and linking the experience of community founders to newcomers today. Fanshawe Pioneer Village worked with the City of London to identify this new opportunity.

The London & Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership Strategic Plan was adopted by the City of London on October 4, 2010. This is a collaborative community initiative designed to strengthen the role of local and regional communities in serving and integrating immigrants and to facilitate increased access to all services. The overarching outcomes for this initiative are:

1. Develop a community capacity and needs inventory that will provide the strategic framework for our community to enhance its capacity to bridge all areas of need within the community for immigrants and newcomers.
2. Establish a London and Middlesex Immigrant Partnership Council that will develop a strategic approach to supporting immigrants, and build upon the excellent activities that are on-going and the work done to date in the areas of attraction, integration and retention of immigrants.
3. Develop and implement a collaborative Community Immigrant Strategic Plan.

All of the above were completed in 2010. With the approval of the strategic plan by the City of London in October, the process now moves to the implementation stage.

One of the key outcomes of the LMLIP Community Strategic Plan is:

Host Community: London and Middlesex residents are exposed, educated and engaged in understanding and accepting diverse traditions, behaviours and experience of all the cultures that make up the community. Furthermore, the host community needs to be empowered with information on cultures and issues related to diversity to fully understand the need as well as the experience of immigrants. The recommended actions will enhance the knowledge of the host community ad will create empathy, understanding and acceptance through maximizing existing community resources and networks.

To understand what facilities may be available for this purpose, the Increasing Access to Community Space for Ethno-Cultural Groups in London report was completed by the Welcoming Cultural Diversity Committee of the United Way.

While established immigrant groups have community halls and facilities to celebrate their culture, new immigrant and ethno-cultural groups often do not. This study identifies the need for fully accessible, public spaces available at no or little cost to these groups for celebration and engagement events and programming.

Study recommendations relevant to this project include:

1. Implementing outreach strategies in City owned facilities to engage ethno-cultural groups and encourage them to use available space
2. Introducing or enhancing diversity training for staff in public and private institutions
3. Promoting partnerships between ethno-cultrual groups, schools , City of London facilities and the private sector
4. Waiving and or subsidizing fees
5. Prioritizing access
6. Providing information on affordable insurance, legal processes, understanding lease policies and agreements.

With the approval of the LMLIP Community Strategic Plan by the City of London, Fanshawe Pioneer Village becomes a partner in its implementation. As a community museum, the purpose of Fanshawe Pioneer Village is to tell the story of the history of London and Middlesex. Although the historic Village tells the story of immigration through two generations up to the 1920s, the story does not end there. The Trillium Community Gallery in the Spriet Centre will be a public space that may be used by ethno-cultural and new immigrant groups to share their history and culture with the host community of London and Middlesex. Public events of this type are key to helping London and Middlesex understand the diverse traditions, behaviours and experience of all the cultures that make up this community. Understanding leads to tolerance and acceptance. As a not-for-profit, Fanshawe Pioneer Village is excellent at delivery of high quality programming in collaboration with community groups.

The Spriet Family Visitor Centre will herald a new era at Fanshawe Pioneer Village; renewed vital infastructure, secure, stable and spacious artifact storage for our collection and partnerships with new citizens who will become future supporters, donors and visitors.

Sheila Johnson
FPV Executive Director

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