Faith & the Common Good Launches Extreme Weather Resilience Project with ISNA Canada and CREW

Faith & the Common Good (FCG) is launching its reimagined Extreme Weather Resilience Project to help faith communities across the Greater Toronto Area build resilience networks against increasingly frequent, severe extreme weather.

For the launch, FCG is partnering with ISNA Canada and CREW (Community Resilience to Extreme Weather) to establish a Resilience Network at Jami Mosque in Toronto.

The first step is FCG’s Comprehensive Green Audit, assessing the building and community’s extreme weather vulnerability, followed by CREW-led workshops.

The first two workshops are Resilientville, a role-playing exercise, that builds awareness of neighbourhood-level emergency response, and Community Asset Mapping, a workshop that maps local resources and organizations that strengthen collective resilience. Later workshops build capacity and inform a Climate Resilience Plan.

These efforts position congregation members and neighbours of all faith traditions — particularly those facing health challenges, mobility limitations, or social isolation — as leaders in resilience planning, not just beneficiaries.

This lays the foundation for a replicable model FCG and CREW can bring to faith communities across the GTA, and a step toward FCG’s goal of reconnecting with past resilience hub partners and building resources for communities across Canada.

(Funding support by Long Reach Fund and Catherine Donnelly Foundation).