Social Innovation and Community Development

What would it take to turn a vacant lot into a community garden or a good idea into a social enterprise? RRC Polytech’s Social Innovation and Community Development programme is a two-year diploma for people who want to drive that kind of change in urban, rural, local or global settings. It is taught at Manitou a bi Bii daziigae on the Exchange District Campus in downtown Winnipeg, and a one-year certificate exit is available after the first year.

The common first year begins with Foundations of Social Innovation, Indigenous Knowledge and Leadership, Project Management for Social Innovation and Community Development, Financial Literacy, Communication Strategies and Computer Applications for Social Innovation. Term 2 adds Reconciling Our Economic Futures, Applied Economics, Financial Documentation, Communication for Social Innovation and the Social Innovation Capstone. Electives include Impact of Climate Change on Communities, Conflict Resolution for Community Development and An Introduction to Anishinaabemowin. In the second year you specialise in either Indigenous Social Entrepreneurship or Community Development.

Social Innovation and Community Development is built on project-based learning, and work experience courses appear at every level of the programme. In the Social Innovation Capstone your team is matched with a community organisation and tackles that client’s real challenge in partnership with a community supervisor, giving you work-integrated experience with a possible employer. Graduates can transfer 30 credit hours to the University of Winnipeg’s Bachelor of Arts in Urban and Inner-City Studies.

Typical destinations include community development worker, social enterprise coordinator, program coordinator, Indigenous economic development officer, community engagement officer and nonprofit project coordinator, in community organisations, Indigenous communities, government and social enterprises. The diploma suits people who care about fairness and reconciliation and want business and project skills to act on it.