Building capacity through participatory action research: the state of the inner-city report project

Abstract

In 2005, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba, began a journey with inner-city organizations that has evolved into an ongoing community-based research project. The purpose of the project is to chronicle the development activities and ongoing challenges in the inner city with an overall aim towards policy change that will better serve inner-city residents. The project continues to train and employ community residents as research assistants, and it continues to contribute to the capacity building and community revitalization efforts in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Canada. This paper describes the origins of the project, the participatory action research model that is used and some of the benefits that have resulted to date.