Red Tape & Roadblocks 2024
Red Tapes and Road Blocks: No-choice choices
Imagine being on the verge of being homeless with your dog staring up at you, looking for its dinner, and you have five dollars in your pocket, all that’s left from day labour. What do you do? Where do you turn? How do you get a better job?
The Durham Workforce Authority (DWA) and its partners will host Red Tapes and Roadblocks. This half-day event will provide a realistic vision of individual challenges people may face when searching for basic needs (food, housing, finances) and promote awareness and education about current community resources. The event will include a maze activity, followed by a facilitated debriefing session.
Participants at registration are given mock avatars or scenarios of people who want to enter the labour market and need community support to do so. This event provides a brief biography and indicates the avatar’s daily challenges. These could include the need for food, shelter, and financial help from numerous government and social agencies.
After the 1.5-hour event, participants are invited to attend a facilitated session, where they will talk about their experiences. Agencies answer questions about available services and address the gaps and issues surrounding those services. Some conversations about how to address the issues often arise naturally during the conversation.
Participants should leave the event with a new awareness that will help community members and agency representatives be more empathetic toward this sector of the population and promote necessary changes to fill gaps and solve existing issues.
Everyone is invited to this important event!