Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/398704
Neighbourhood Small Grants p a g e 1 4 I V a n c o u v e r F o u n d a t i o n l F a l l 2 0 1 4 Sometimes vegetable stew includes turnips. Usually it has potatoes, onions and carrots, but it might also include grains and seasonal farmers market produce like squash or zucchini. Each time it's made in one of the workshops put on by Collin van Uchelen, PhD, it's different. It all depends on what ingredients people bring. And that's the point. e stew serves as a microcosm of community engagement itself. "It's different every time," says van Uchelen, "and that's a metaphor for the diversity you get within a community when everybody is sharing of themselves." It could be a potluck dinner or a community garden plot, but in van Uchelen's workshop, e Heart of Belonging, it's part of an interactive exercise that examines the psychology of community and encourages interpersonal con- nection and a sense of belonging. Lidia Kemeny, who oversees the Vancouver Foundation Neighbourhood Small Grants program that funds e Heart of Belonging, attended one of van Uchelen's first workshops in Kitsilano in 2012. She brought turnips as her contribution, and remembers how simply and effectively the resulting stew demonstrated van Uchelen's point: If you invite people to participate and give them a role, a purpose, you'll foster community engagement. "It's not just about showing up," she says. "In the end, when we all share that stew, you can just sense the ownership that people have in that meal." It seems rather basic, but the entire workshop takes on another level of meaning when people realize van Uchelen is blind. Van Uchelen describes his blindness as profoundly disconnect- ing. "If I have any word to describe its impact, it really disconnects me from so much of what's around me," he says. "e visual world, the expressions on people's faces, the look in someone's eye, what's writ- ten on the newspaper headline, what's on the bulletin board, the treasure you find at a garage sale, the obstacle blocking your path on the sidewalk. When you lose your eyesight, you lose a lot of oppor- tunity for engagement and connection. "e core issue for me is that my sight loss has really required me to make extra effort to maintain connection," says van Uchelen. It's part of what makes him so attuned to the psychological sense of Blind psychology expert Collin van Uchelen deconstructs the process of connecting to one another BY BARB SLIGL | PHOTOS VINCENT CHAN New Insight