Course Content for the Diploma in Local Democracy

1. Building Relationships Where People Are Real.
2. Democratic Traditions: Democratic Thought and Civil Society in Ontario - William Lyon Mackenzie, the Social Gospel and Mutual Aid in Waterloo County.
3. Local Democratic Initiatives: Local and independent publishing as instruments of community development, local democracy and schools, and the development of the United Way.
4. Democratic Traditions – Theory and Practice 1: Wendell Berry, Christopher Lasch and Jane Jacobs.
5. The Working Centre – A History of Building Relationships: Producerism vs. Consumerism.
6. Democratic Traditions – Theory and Practice 2: Working Centre Precursors – The Catholic Worker, Antigonish Movement and Jane Addams and Hull House.
7. Community Development from the Bottom Up – Working Centre examples: St. John’s Kitchen, Tri Tech Recycling, Job Café.
8. Class Relations in Waterloo Region in the post war era: growth of organized labour, role of unions in community development.
9. Leadership Training that involves all members of an organization.
10. Democratic Stories of Kitchener: Berlin to Kitchener, the Kitchener Market Fight and the New City Hall.
11. Ecology, Sustainability and Community Development – Community gardens, CSA’s, Recycle Cycles, car free living and transportation alternatives.
12. How Art, Music and Theatre Contribute to the Democratic Tradition.
13. Democratic Traditions: Small is Beautiful and Diversity Through Decentralization – The Two Cities of Kitchener and Waterloo.
14. History of Community Development in Canada.
15. Community Entrepreneurship through Cooperation.