WINNIPEG – The West Broadway community officially welcomed new neighbours on April 1, 2026, as Initiatives for Just Communities (IJC) formally launched their new drop-in space at 555 Broadway. The new IJC Winnipeg offices are open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., offering a drop-in centre, food bank, clothing depot, cooking classes, sewing and beading programs, singing and drumming, and counselling services. Founded nearly 20 years ago by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)

The following story originally appeared in The Carillon on February 23, written by Svjetlana Mlinarevic. RM of Hanover council has approved a conditional use order that will allow for transitional housing for women in Mitchell. The approval of the conditional use order was granted by council Feb. 11 during a public hearing. The housing is an initiative between Initiatives for Just Communities (IJC) and the department of families’ community living disABILITY services. IJC’s di

The Touchstone drop-in officially opened at 555 Broadway on December 8, 2025, and not a day too soon. The new space is larger, more functional, and thoughtfully designed. At the former Erin St location, the offices and the drop-in overlapped, making programming challenging. “It was too small,” says Lambert Baiden, the drop-in coordinator. “We couldn’t handle any events, and it was overcrowded.” The tables in the staff boardroom doubled as a ping-pong table. If one person want

The following article was written by Shannon Dueck for Steinbach Online on February 20. Council for the Rural Municipality of Hanover has given the green light for a group home to open in Mitchell. Representatives for Initiatives for Just Communities (IJC), also known as El'dad, appeared before Council with the proposal. The organization would like to open a residential home in order to support up to six adult females living with intellectual disabilities. In her proposal to

The following article was written by Svjetlana Mlinarevic for The Carillon on April 5, 2025. Initiatives for Just Communities (IJC) is forming a coalition with other service agencies in the Southeast in order to better serve their clients and Minister of Families Nahanni Fontaine was in attendance on Tuesday to see their work. “One of the reasons the minister is coming out is we’ve been working with a coalition of family services agencies in southeastern Manitoba to advocate

The following article is an excerpt from a piece written in the Winnipeg Free Press on August 22, 2025 by Erik Pindera. It highlights some of the work being done by IJC. Click here to read the full article. It was early in Don Shackel’s career, while working in the mental health and addictions field in northern Ontario, when he met a woman who had given birth to a child with FASD. That started him on a path that has included work with the Interagency FASD Program in Winnipeg

The following article was written by Darci Wilkinson, for the SteinbachOnline.com, and was originally published on April 5, 2025. El’dad Ranch welcomed a special guest yesterday afternoon as Manitoba’s Minister of Families, Nahanni Fontaine, visited the facility. In February, Initiatives for Just Communities (IJC) and seven other agencies from the Eastman region met with Minister Fontaine to discuss funding concerns, particularly regarding clinical and specialized services.

In gratitude for Gail Schellenberg’s lifelong commitment to education, Initiatives for Just Communities (IJC) is naming the renovated training space at the El’dad offices the Gail Schellenberg Training Centre. Gail served as the executive director for Initiatives for Just Communities from 2014 to 2020, when health issues intervened. She passed away on December 4, 2020. Gail was both an educator and an administrator. She brought multi-disciplinary creativity, humour and a beli

Lisa is a presenter for Visions and Voices, a part of the Touchstone FASD program. Visions and Voices seeks to increase awareness in communities in order to reduce the stigma of FASD and to encourage healthy living. Thank you Lisa for sharing your story. Good day everyone! My name is Lisa, and I have FASD. My life as a child was challenging especially at school. Kids would tease me but I would always give them money or buy things for them. I thought that it would buy their fr

It is not the kind of statement you would expect from someone who just finished visiting a person in prison. John has been a volunteer with Open Circle for two years and was moving on so he could dedicate more time to other things. He voiced his comment as I spent some time debriefing with him, asking what his experience with Open Circle was like. His comment was not voiced in a negative light. To the contrary. He felt everyone should have an opportunity to "go to prison" so

What new at El’dad? Home Share is….. The El’ Dad Home Share Program provides support services to men and women with intellectual disabilities, within the Steinbach and surrounding areas, The Home share program connects participant with hosts who are willing to share their home and positive life style with others. Could this be you? Have you ever considered sharing your home or becoming a professional neighbor? There are many home share options available This is a worthwhile o

There’s been so much going on at El’dad that it’s nice to take a break from the hustle and bustle to reflect and write a blog entry. We had some tense moments leading up to our annual Fundraising barbecue themed “Here Come’s The Sun”. The weather forecast called for showers. We took this all as a challenge. We had two choices; either change the date or rebrand the event “Here Comes The Rain” and prepare for it. We opted to plan for rain and as it turned out, we had over 200 a

In the course of our work, we meet people from time to time, who have made some bad choices in life. When I meet such, I want to learn from them, and so I ask them questions. And almost without fail, every one of them would say there are many things they would do differently. But the sad thing is they keep going the wrong direction. How? By the choices they are making today. The choices you make today define your life tomorrow. That is why choices have to be made with care.

We settled into our seats at the local coffee shop to catch up on the latest news. James had seen his fair share of rough spots in life. Prison, mental health issues, struggling to hold a full time job. As we talked we were interrupted by someone sitting next to us, “Do you know how much a Timbit costs?” James and I looked at each other for a moment, “Just a few cents.” There was no verbal response from the next table, just a nod. I had not paid any attention to our neighbo

Seeing the Invisible You are going to make a decision everyday how you want to live: whether it’s going to be by what you see or just trust that the not yet seen is much better. Sight is powerful but limited. We recently had a two-day training on suicide prevention, and it’s amazing the statistics on suicide not just globally but even here in Canada. And this is what baffles me, the common refrain from survivors: I looked around and couldn’t see anything to live for again!

Hank Dixon, interim Director of Open Circle, and Natalia Ilyniak, Director of Circles of Support and Accountability, spoke at Geez Magazine’s launch of Issue #44: Prisons. Hank shared about his experiences with the prison, both as an inmate and chaplain. He closed his presentation by quoting Gregory J. Boyle: "We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despise

Mediation Services and Initiatives for Just Communities have partnered to create an interactive exhibition that will foster an understanding of personal experiences with the Criminal Justice System, as well as promote community-based Restorative Justice initiatives in Manitoba. This exhibition will be set up at the Canadian Mennonite University on Wednesday, November 22, in Marpeck Commons and at the University of Manitoba on the 23rd, on the 2nd floor of University Centre (A

It is the hidden side of prison. The side that gets little mention in the press. The side that serves a different kind of time. I met her just as she was entering Stony Mountain Institution for the first time. She stood in the entrance to the prison, fear etched on her face. English was not her first language, her husband had just started serving a federal sentence and she was trying to drop off some personal effects. I noticed her standing there, uncertain of what to do,