Honouring Our Elders, Looking to Our Future
“This funding has played a crucial role in our My Voice Project, enabling us to provide essential resources and support for Japanese Canadians, particularly seniors and their families, who face language barriers in navigating advance care planning. Your commitment to funding meaningful community initiatives has strengthened the well-being and resilience of our community. We look forward to continuing this important work in the future.” – Masako Arima, Executive Director, Tonari Gumi
In doing the work of Japanese Canadian Legacies we keep top of mind the legacy we have inherited from our elders and the responsibility we have to serve our community. We honour our elders past and present through the various programs and initiatives we oversee.
Consultations held across the country made clear to us that a multi-faceted, multi-generational approach was needed to address the trauma of the wartime treatment of Japanese Canadians and create a lasting legacy of healing. The Japanese Canadian Survivors Health and Wellness Fund is one such program that addresses individual health care needs of Survivors, with close to 5,000 individual grants being administered to date.
In addition, the Community Fund has a number of programs that address intergenerational healing through grants for seniors and families. The Intergenerational Wellness stream directly funds impacted families through Family Sharing and Healing, providing an opportunity for Survivors to share their stories, sometimes for the first time. Collective sharing and healing is funded through Seniors Intergenerational Group Wellness and Intergenerational Group Gatherings with trained facilitators. This stream has had a powerful impact on seniors and their families, with almost 300 grants administered.
Similarly, the Community Projects stream is funding many intergenerational projects, including projects driven by seniors groups, that contribute to the health and wellbeing of multi-generational families.
The Infrastructure stream of the Community Fund provides large grants to numerous community organizations and groups across the country through infrastructure and capital purchases grants, including much-needed vans for transporting seniors and critical upgrades to facilities that serve seniors and families.
An important element of our mandate is the commemoration of our past – naming and acknowledging those that came before us – addressed by the BC Heritage Sites program and the Monument Park being planned for Victoria, BC. Both of these programs ensure that the important contributions of our elders to British Columbia are remembered and honoured. The Monument will incorporate a wall containing the names of more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians impacted by the wartime actions of the government as well as 3,000 children born after uprooting.
In doing this work, we also look to the future of the community, addressed by the Scholarships stream of the Community Fund that has funded nearly 600 Descendants, and the Teacher Education Resources program that ensures that our history is taught properly in schools. Through investing in community healing with an intergenerational approach, we look towards building a future that is both hopeful and healthy for generations to come.
“Receiving a grant from the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society has deepened my connection to my Japanese Canadian heritage. Knowing that my community supported my journey added a sense of purpose to my performance. I often found myself during the event thinking of my Grandmother and how proud she would have been of what I was able to accomplish along with the support of the Japanese Canadian Community.” – Michael Darbyshire, Sports recipient
“This opportunity has allowed the Japanese Canadian community to continue to have a presence for generations to come, and bring some culture and beauty to a small town where many Japanese Canadians raised their families. We are forever grateful to the JCLS.” – Taber Japanese Ladies Group