CED In Nova Scotia: An Overview

All across Nova Scotia, people are banding together with one goal in mind - to make their communities better places to live and work. They're doing C-E-D: community economic development.

C-E-D is fundamentally rooted in community. For CED to happen, local people have to take the initiative, get involved and learn to work together. Then, sometimes with the support of CED practitioners and government, and sometimes without, the people take a hard look at themselves, identify their strengths, and decide what they should do and how they'll do it. In Nova Scotia, the results are as wonderful and diverse as our communities themselves.

The Avon Spirit

The people of Avondale, Hants County can testify that great things happen when you work together and build on the strengths of your community. The Avon River was home to a prosperous ship building industry during the last century. Inspired by the area's history and recognizing that they had a wonderful tradition to draw on, a group of local residents decided to build a wooden ship and rebuild the local economy at the same time. As part of the process, they created the Avon Spirit Co-operative Ltd., a co-operatively-owned company that enabled local people to invest in the project. Working with the Avon River Heritage Society, the Co-operative constructed a ship yard next to the Society's museum, tea room and gift shop complex. Later, they opened a wooden boat building school. Today, people come from far and wide to watch and learn how to build traditional sailing ships and boats. And, they bring their spending money with them. By building on their history, the people of the area are creating employment, generating tourist revenue and ensuring that the tradition of wooden ship building continues on the Avon River.

CED & IT

Building on tradition is one thing; communities are also learning to take advantage of new technology. They're setting up community access (CAP) sites, places where local people can go to use a computer and go on-line to the Internet. In north eastern Nova Scotia, the Strait East Nova Community Enterprise Network (SENCEN), helps them to get organized. SENCEN is a partnership of the Strait Regional School Board, and the Strait Highlands, Guysborough and Antigonish Regional Development Authorities. Many of its staff are young people from the area. Under SENCEN's guidance, communities are finding out that information technology is useful to people in rural areas. Local businesses are being introduced to electronic commerce, learning how to sell their products on-line. People living in isolated areas now have access to university courses and new educational opportunities. Young people are setting up web sites to promote their communities. Tourism operators take reservations on-line. By being able to access information technology in their own back yard, Nova Scotians are discovering new opportunities for learning, new forms of employment for themselves and new ways to reach out to the world.

Diversification

Diversification of the local economy is often an important goal of communities starting to do CED. Diversification means creating a variety of opportunities in different sectors of the economy instead of relying on one big industry. Diversification helps communities ride out the boom and bust cycles that typically affect single industry economies.

The people of Isle Madame made diversification a top priority for their Development Isle Madame Association (DIMA). DIMA is a community-owned, non-profit company that works with residents of Isle Madame to create business and employment opportunities. It was created by local people in response to the collapse of the ground fishery. The people themselves established the Association's priorities, insisting that development be based on the community's strengths and that the economy be diversified. As a result, DIMA has projects going in aquaculture, eco-tourism, small manufacturing, telecommunications and information technology. The Island's youth have played an enormous role in the Island's transformation. Many of them came home from away to play an active role in DIMA and set up local businesses to create their own future.

Not just economic development. Social development too.

However, CED isn't just economic development. CED is about building communities. Often that means meeting the social needs of the community in order to gain economic benefits. In the Halifax County communities of Lucasville and Upper Hammonds Plains, for example, social development is a huge part of their CED process. Sharing a common heritage and common interests, several years ago they pooled their resources and set up their own development office. A plan was developed in which everyone in the two communities was consulted and had an opportunity to participate. The development office coordinates the work, but the people of Upper Hammonds Plains and Lucasville pitch in to help, frequently on a volunteer-basis. The results are inspiring. They've built houses for each other, lobbied the government for better roads and infrastructure, set up academic upgrading programs and training opportunities for residents, created summer day camps for local children, renovated their community centres, and more.

While Lucasville and Upper Hammonds Plains are a great example of two communities sharing resources, it'shappening on a province-wide basis as well. The Coastal Communities Network (CCN) brings together people from community organizations, educational institutions, businesses, fishers, government representatives, social justice groups and churches from all over the Nova Scotia. Before CCN was started, many of its members never worked together. Now they meet with common goals - to share ideas and information and to develop strategies that promote the survival and development of Nova Scotia's coastal and rural communities.

People quietly building opportunities.

There are so many more stories of people quietly building opportunities in their hometowns. In Canso, the Stan Rogers Festival brings thousands of visitors into the community each July. They're welcomed by more than 400 volunteers, a remarkable feat considering Canso has a population of only 1,200 people. This community-run festival builds on the legacy of Stan Rogers and Nova Scotia's musical tradition, and is estimated to bring about $1.5 million to the local economy each year.

Combining arts and culture with an entrepreneurial spirit works in Bear River too. A group of dedicated volunteers turned their abandoned community school into a vital new centre of economic and community activity. The Bear River Community School is now the Oakdene Centre, a complex that houses craft studios, a community access computer site, and space for events like music festivals and community meetings.

These examples only begin to get at the level of activity going on in Nova Scotia. People all across the province are taking control of their destinies and working together to make their communities better places to live and work. And in the tradition of community-based economic development, they're doing it in their own way; finding out what works best in their own context, and then getting on with it.

CED works for Nova Scotia. It makes communities stronger, and creates a future for our youth. It's about the sustenance and survival of communities. And it means a better life for all of us.

For more Nova Scotia CED Success stories click here.