A seven-year, $2.5 million partnership Grant awarded to the Manitoba Research Alliance (MRA) by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) was announced on June 22. It is to support a project called Partnering for Change -- Community Based Solutions for Aboriginal and Innercity Poverty.

Dr. John Loxley, Department of Economics, Principal Investigator for the grant; Shauna MacKinnon, Director of the CCPA-MB; Kevin Chief, Minister of Children and Youth Opportunities and MLA for Point Douglas; officials from the Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg, and community partners spoke at the announcement.

The research will be focused on understanding the complicated dynamics of inner-city and Aboriginal community poverty and social exclusion. The CCPA-MB will employ a communitybased participatory research method which means that community partners will play a key role in identifying what research needs to be done, collaborating with the other partners in doing the research, and disseminating of the results. Improved understanding of these issues will allow the MRA to offer policy recommendations that could improve people’s lives.

The grant allows the MRA to extend the research done under its previous two SSHRC grants to a new level. The MRA will now have the resources and time to engage in longitudinal studies and will be able to research more Aboriginal communities outside of Winnipeg, and include more remote and Northern communities.