Current Projects

Led by| Dr. Ciann Wilson

This project aims to:

1. Build upon historical relationships, as well as our growing transdisciplinary and multi-sectoral collaborative partnerships between Indigenous and Black communities in developing a community of practice for community-controlled research, evaluation, and data management processes.
2. Build upon existing community-created protocols/guidelines/toolkits aimed at protecting the rights of Indigenous Nations and Black communities in this age of open access data sharing, algorithms, and artificial intelligence by evaluating and cultivating approaches, tools, and resources to practically use and apply existing community-created research protocols for ethical research.
3. Cultivate spaces for knowledge exchange where Indigenous, Black, and allied researchers and community stewards can think through the nuances of data management within the context of growing conversations about data sharing, anonymity, algorithms and AI are redefining research, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality within traditional and non-traditional research and data management contexts. Towards this end, we will derive and develop resources and strategies for the rigorous protections of our communities. 

Funder: Tri-Agency

Beginning in 2017, this community-based participatory action research project led by Dr. Wilson, employs qualitative and arts-based methods to gain an understanding of the histories, realities, erasure, and lived experiences of mixed Indigenous and Black Peoples in the settler nation-state known as Canada (AKA Afro-Indigenous communities). This project focuses on the ways in which Afro-Indigenous peoples are impacted by colonization, racism, lateral violence, and the implications for health and social service access - both within and outside of their communities. We have created a written, visual and narrative archive of the histories, geographies of both African diasporic and Indigenous ancestry in Canada at ProclaimingOurRoots.com. Current knowledge mobilization focuses on curriculum development, a community toolkit resource, and peer-reviewed publications. 

Led by| Dr. Ann Marie Beals

In partnership with the Canadian Centre for Safer Communities' Jazlyn O'Bonsawin, this project focuses on improving community safety and community care in urban and rural Indigenous communities. Addressing persistent challenges such as knowledge gaps, the need for decolonizing safety practices, and the importance of community-led initiatives, the work develops culturally based, evidence-informed strategies for planning, practice, and evaluation. The research involves a systematic review of academic and grey literature, interviews with subject matter experts and community partners, and most importantly, sharing circles with Indigenous community members. The project shares best practices and strategies for Indigenous community safety and decolonizing approaches.

Title: Partnerships for Climate Justice: Amplifying the Voices of Marginalized Youth for Sustained Climate Activism and Societal Transformation

Funding: SSHRC Partnership Development Grant

Country Leads

Co-Investigator | Dr. Ann Marie Beals (and others) 

Youth for Climate Justice (Youth4CJ) is a global, two-year research initiative that brings together marginalized youth, academics, and community partners to strengthen climate activism and wellbeing. Operating across six countries—including Brazil, Haiti, South Africa, Uganda, Canada, and the UK—the project explores how climate change intensifies social inequalities and how young people, especially those facing intersecting forms of marginalization, are responding through grassroots activism. Despite being among the most affected, these youth are often excluded from formal decision-making spaces. Youth4CJ centers their voices, recognizing both the emotional toll of activism and the power of collective care in sustaining long-term engagement.

Through participatory action research, Youth4CJ supports youth-led climate projects tailored to local needs and challenges. Each initiative is co-designed by young people and supported by researchers and community organizations, ensuring relevance and impact. By fostering interdisciplinary and cross-sector partnerships, the project aims to co-create knowledge, tools, and pathways that promote sustained climate action—without compromising the health and wellbeing of youth activists. Ultimately, Youth4CJ seeks to amplify marginalized voices and influence inclusive climate resilience policies worldwide.

Community Partners

Led by| Dr. Ehaab Abdou

Making Space for All is an ongoing initiative at Laurier that brings together faculty, students, staff, and community partners to critically engage with how social and cultural representations shape the experiences of Black, Indigenous, racialized, and other marginalized groups. The project examines representations across education, faith, youth activism, popular culture, and other social spaces, recognizing their power to influence identity, belonging, and opportunity. Through dialogue, collaboration, and action-oriented planning, it seeks to strengthen EDII work by addressing misrepresentation and exclusion, and by supporting more inclusive narratives in both academic and community contexts.

Led by| Dr. Ciann Wilson and Dr. Marritt Kirst

This project brings together researchers, non-profit funders, evaluation specialists (e.g., professional evaluators, trainers, and scholars) and non-profits who over years of collaboration on community-based evaluations, and more recently a SSHRC Connection grant, have collectively identified a critical need to integrate equitable evaluations more fully within the non-profit sector. The goal of this collaborative community-engaged partnership development project is to advance conceptual and practical work toward building the equitable evaluation capacity for the benefit of equity-seeking communities and the non-profits aimed at serving these communities. The partners will work collaboratively to generate responsive and stakeholder-informed frameworks, resources, and publications that will be used to develop a timely evaluation capacity-building initiative for the benefit of Canadian non-profits. The specific objectives of the proposed project that have been co-developed with project partners are to:

1. Determine how equitable evaluations and evaluation capacity building are being conceptualized and practiced throughout the non-profit sector in Canada through a scoping review of academic and grey literature and an environmental scan of national and international equitable evaluation initiatives; 
2. Assess the need for equitable evaluation in Canada through designing and administering online surveys targeted to multi-sectoral stakeholders nationally;
3. Engage with our multi-sectoral team of academics, non-profit stakeholders, program evaluation professionals, and non-profit funders to develop a shared conceptual framework of equitable, and community-based approaches to evaluation;
4. Use ongoing results and insights from our research to design practical evaluation capacity-building outputs such as reports, manuscripts, and a module of our developed framework, which will inform and be tested in a subsequent pilot initiative. 

Led by| Dr. Todd Coleman’s
Co-investigator| Dr. Ciann Wilson

The Welcome Study, utilizes mixed methods approaches to explore the service access needs of 2SLGBTQ newcomers in Waterloo Region. This project has a particular focus on the experiences of racialized newcomers, given the paucity of research on the intersections of racism, homophobia, and transphobia. The study is currently in its knowledge mobilization phase, with the production of manuscripts and related outputs. 

Led by| Dr. Ciann Wilson and Brianna Hunt

The AKM project utilized various Indigenous and arts-based approaches (e.g. mural-making, poetry, graffiti, etc.) as an avenue for engaging young people in Winnipeg, Manitoba  in conversations about their service access and policy needs as it pertains to housing precarity, homelessness, and substance use. Research questions explored include:

1. (How) do youth-serving organizations in Winnipeg utilize youth-focused harm reduction frameworks when providing housing supports?
2. a) What exposure to harm reduction have youth with lived experience of homelessness had while accessing housing supports?
   b) What can youth with lived experience share about the potential of youth-focused harm reduction policies and practices to remove barriers to housing and position youth-serving organizations to better prevent youth homelessness?
3. a) How can a youth-led, community art project mobilize the voices of youth with lived experience?
   b) How can this art project inform harm reduction policies and practices within youth-serving organizations both locally and beyond?

Ciann L. Wilson is the recipient of a Canadian Foundation for Innovation’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund and Ontario Research Fund grant to establish a Community-based Research (CBR) media lab at Laurier. 

The Community-Based Research Media Lab is available to students, faculty, staff and community partners alike and has media equipment for arts- and digital media- informed collaborative research both in the field and on-site. The CBR media lab is the first facility of its kind in Waterloo Region, with available media equipment including cameras, laptop and desktop computers equipped with relevant software, and audio-visual equipment.  This space also functions as a multi-use space where arts-informed research outputs produced from the ongoing work can be exhibited and shared.