This fiscal year began as any other with our activities clearly laid out - an Eduarts Hub in Ottawa in May 2019 marking the end of a three-year Grow grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the commencement of a three-year Canada Council Digital Strategy Project with an international conference in Winnipeg in October and three national Eduarts Hubs in April.
We were looking forward to connecting with the arts and learning communities in Whitehorse, Regina and Windsor through those three in-person Hubs. Never could we have foreseen that our reach and impact would ripple far beyond the confines of those geographical regions. When the pandemic struck, those three Hubs were cancelled and The Network immediately changed course to offer much-needed support to desperate and struggling arts education practitioners.
From March 23 - April 3, The Canadian Network for Arts & Learning hosted a series of 10 digital roundtable discussions to gain a better understanding of participants’ experiences at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were proud to be the first organization to offer this much-needed support to the sector and continue to develop this new line of networking and exchange to inform our work.