Advancing rural wellbeing

The Community of Conche. Photo by Brennan Lowery

The Sustainable Rural Communities Initiative (SRCI) aims to co-ordinate research, learning, and engagement opportunities that advance the well-being and sustainability of rural communities in western Newfoundland.

The project has a number of specific goals, including:

"Establishing experiential learning and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students is a crucial goal of this initiative," said Dr. Brennan Lowery, who has been coordinating SRCI. "At the same time, we aim to facilitate these opportunities in a way that will lead to meaningful benefits for community partners in rural regions of western Newfoundland."

Strategic themes include:

SRCI is building on the recently launched undergraduate Certificate in Sustainable Rural Communities, as well as spearheading the development of additional academic programming including a proposed Master's and PhD program.

"We feel that community-focused programming, in partnership with the Community Hubs, is a key feature of this initiative," added Dr. Lowery. "We hope to increase Grenfells capacity to do this community-based work by developing an eventual Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities, which will leverage existing partners and initiatives."

Partners include Navigate, the Centre for Research & Innovation, the Community Hubs, ARC-NL, the Functional Foods Lab and the Environmental Policy Institute.