Reframing South Vancouver
Stakeholder Engagement
Making South
Vancouver
Voices Heard
Reframing South Vancouver acts as a convener to bring together community organizations, academic institutions, government agencies and neighbourhood champions that work to improve South Vancouver. In 2023, we passed a city council motion titled “Addressing Historic Inequities by Improving Infrastructure and Access to Services across South Vancouver and Marpole Neighbourhoods” to advocate for more investments on social infrastructure in South Vancouver.
It passed unanimously and since became a guiding document in our advocacy. We organized 4 community forums to showcase academic research and residents’ stories regarding the social inequities in South Vancouver. To allow decisionmakers such as municipal staff and elected officials to experience first-hand the challenges faced by South Vancouver residents, we held 3 bus tours to show them different parts of the catchment, including the hilly roads, uneven and lack of sidewalks, largely residential neighbourhoods with little social infrastructure, limited transit services and so on.
Attendees described the experience as “impactful and transforming”. We also hosted 3 all-candidates townhalls for the federal and provincial elections, creating a space where residents can meet their candidates and ask questions. We received the Community-Engaged Partnership Award from SFU’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) in 2022, and were nominated for the City of Vancouver’s Award of Excellence in 2025. Through our efforts, we have built a collective and strong partnership and created momentum for bottom-up, grassroots advocacy led by the South Vancouver community.