I adopted the digital world late in life but have managed to achieve a level of competency that allows me to embrace new technologies with a measure of ease and confidence. On the personal front digital technology has helped bridge the communication gap between family and friends that comes …show more content…
Through education programs, community engagement, and city-wide collaboration, this project strives to create opportunities that support the remedial efforts at the waterfront via agencies (ex: BARC), community groups, and public volunteers. Hamilton residents now have the opportunity to shape the future of the West Harbour community by participating in community engagement events such as: “A West Harbour Engagement Planning Stakeholder Workshop”. The aim of the workshop was to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to work together to co-create an engagement …show more content…
In order to address concerns of the relevance of academic curricula to local communities, we have designed courses where students become part of a community group. In this setting outside the classroom students interact with various stakeholders- patients, health practitioners and caregivers. The idea is to apply academic knowledge in real-time but also gain new perspectives beyond academic content and foster relationships to contribute to local communities in a meaningful way. Social media has become an important tool in this endeavour facilitating sharing of relevant content and engagement within the community. At this early stage we are uncertain if the community will respond positively to communicating health concerns through social-media. There is evidence however that 59 percent of US adults who use the internet reported that they have looked online for health information (Fox et al 2013; Weaver et al 2009), with 35 percent indicating they had gone online specifically to understand an emerging health condition. This is encouraging and we hope to take this further and actively engage our members to share their stories, participate in message creation, and collaborate on ideas or strategies that can be shared. The hope is to increase users’ engagement and reaction to public health messages. The goal is to create online communities formed by individuals who organize themselves