There’s a vital social message at your feet
Health and Social Services Minister Glenn Hart hopes his finishing touches and the overnight work of painters will get locals thinking about social inclusion.
Photo by Vince Fedorof
SEIZING THE ROLLER – Health and Social Services Minister Glenn Hart paints a sign on a Third Avenue sidewalk this morning for the Yukon government’s new social inclusion campaign.
Health and Social Services Minister Glenn Hart hopes his finishing touches and the overnight work of painters will get locals thinking about social inclusion.
Outside the Java Connection downtown this morning, Hart finished painting the final piece of sidewalk work about social inclusion, part of a government project that’s been underway since the fall of 2009.
“We have been working toward a government-wide social inclusion and poverty reduction strategy since last October,” Hart said. “We want to open the dialogue between government and citizens.
“To do that, we need to ensure we have a common language and a common understanding of what social exclusion, and inclusion, means.”
The messages located on 11 sites around the city feature three painted blocks – one with a red background and two with a blue background, all with white lettering.
The red includes a message one might hear when they’re being socially excluded. “You can’t take part”, “You don’t belong here” and “You can’t get there” are among the examples for the red.
That’s followed by the next blue box which makes a statement about the situation: “Social exclusion is all around us”, for example.
Finally, readers will be directed, in the next box, to the website: inclusion-is-better.ca
Hart grabbed the paint roller and dipped it into white paint this morning to complete the lettering on the final box. Before doing so, he told those gathered outside the coffee shop he hopes the messages will help everyone see through the eyes of someone who feels socially excluded.
“Starting today, you’ll see signs like this,” he said.
Along with being outside the Java Connection, the work will greet those: entering to the Canada Games Centre; using Rotary Peace and Shipyards parks; walking along Main Street at Coast Mountain Sports, the Elijah Smith Building, the CIBC and Mac’s Fireweed Books; the Robert
Campbell Bridge in and out of Riverdale; on the Millennium Trail; and near LePage Park.
The sites were chosen for their high visibility and “perceived sense of exclusion”, the government said in a backgrounder about the project, going on to explain: “For instance, the (Whitehorse) public library was not an ideal site, since its services are free and anyone can use them.”
“The social inclusion and poverty reduction office is grateful to the City of Whitehorse for allowing these messages to be painted on public property and business owners for their enthusiastic support of the campaign,” Hart said.
He stressed the government purchased an environmentally-friendly paint – Ecologix – for the work. It will be washed off using a pressure washer when the campaign ends in three weeks.
Along with using sidewalks and trails, the government is also sending out its message through posters, radio and other media. Communities will soon receive posters of the sidewalk messages.
Hart has already seen some people snapping photos as they passed the sidewalk messages this morning. He expressed confidence people will pay attention to the campaign.
The initiative is building on a symposium and workshop about social inclusion and poverty reduction held in April. A follow-up to that is scheduled for November.
The inter-departmental committee guiding the work of the social inclusion and poverty reduction office is made up of representatives from Community Services, Education, the Executive Council Office, Justice, Heath and Social Services (which heads the group), the Yukon Women’s
Directorate and Yukon Housing Corp.
Health and Social Services spokeswoman Marcelle Dubé said this morning the full costs of the campaign have yet to come in, but it’s expected they will be under $30,000.
JC
Aug 5, 2010 at 4:09 pm
DUMB! to say the least. Is everyone supposed to say, hey, lets welcome those pot smoking crack head, welfare bum panhandlers into our social circle? Is that the message someone is trying to get out to everybody? Does someone actually get paid to come up with such idiocy? And when it comes to poverty, GET A JOB! Then we won’t have to import third world immigrants/refugees into the country to do them. From the last stats I heard, there’s still 7% unemployment despite the immigration/worker import. So, is this really the message someone is trying to get out. Someone enlighten me if I’m on the wrong track here. And then explain.