At the edge of the country, but not alone: A Resilient Futures partner growing across Newfoundland and Labrador

For Rosie Myers, building resilient futures means making sure people can access the financial help they need —wherever they live and whatever challenges they may be facing. 

“It’s about understanding how we can help folks access the benefits and supports they need at a time when the cost of living and the housing crisis are putting incredible pressure on them,” she says.  

Myers is the Financial Empowerment Coordinator at YWCA St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador. Through the Resilient Futures project and funding, the organization is strengthening and expanding services that respond to the financial challenges experienced by women and gender-diverse people across the province. This work is designed to address gender-based disparities in income and help people build the skills, knowledge and confidence to make decisions about their finances.

YWCA St. John’s is one of 97 organizations participating in Resilient Futures, a four-year, $60-million national initiative led by Prosper Canada and funded by the Government of Canada through the Social Development Partnerships Program – Children and Families. The initiative aims to expand access to free, high-quality financial help for people with low and modest incomes across Canada. 

A clear need for services 

Myers says the organization has seen a clear need for four interconnected areas of financial empowerment: tax filing, access to benefits, financial coaching and counselling, and financial education.  

At a time when many households are experiencing significant financial pressure these supports help people access income, manage their finances and make informed decisions. They can also reduce some of the stress involved in navigating complex financial systems; especially for people who are already managing other challenges in their lives. 

Resilient Futures is giving YWCA St. John’s the opportunity to build on its existing work while planning for longer-term growth. Having begun as a service offered in the St. John’s metropolitan area, the organization’s virtual tax clinic has expanded across the province.

Over the next three years, YWCA St. John’s also plans to extend its services beyond St. John’s to reach women and gender-diverse people in communities across Newfoundland and Labrador.

Making financial support services accessible 

This expansion is particularly important in a province where geography can create significant barriers to services. Virtual delivery can reach people across a large area, while local, in-person support gives community members another way to receive help in a setting that feels accessible and relevant to them. 

YWCA St. John’s brings an intersectional gender-equity lens to this work, recognizing that gender can intersect with race, income, geography and experiences of trauma to create additional barriers to financial well-being. Its anti-racist and trauma-informed approaches help ensure that services respond to people’s circumstances and support them in ways that build knowledge, confidence and agency.

For Myers, however, Resilient Futures is about more than expanding individual programs. It is also an opportunity to learn alongside organizations addressing similar challenges across Canada. 

“It means that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” she explains. “We can build on what other folks have already learned.” 

That shared learning can be highly practical. Organizations with extensive experience operating tax clinics, for example, can share effective approaches for recruiting and training volunteers. Partners serving rural and remote communities can exchange ideas about overcoming distance, limited local services and other barriers to financial help. 

These connections are especially valuable for organizations in regions that can sometimes feel disconnected from national networks. 

“We can be a little bit isolated at the end of the country on the east,” Myers says. 

Being part of Resilient Futures allows YWCA St. John’s to connect with organizations across Canada that are encountering many of the same challenges and exploring different ways to address them.  

Myers sees this collaboration as essential to building stronger, more responsive services. Each organization brings its own experience, community knowledge and practical lessons to the network, giving partners across the country more insight to draw from as they strengthen their own work. 

What gives Myers hope is knowing that organizations across Canada are committed to doing this work together. 

“There’s such a network of strong service providers across the country who are really trying to meet people where they are,” she says. “Folks have lots of complexity in their lives, and if we can reduce the stress and the barriers to accessing the supports they deserve, then that’s a huge win. We will all do a better job of that if we’re doing it together.” 

—Katherine Reid, Senior Communications Officer, Prosper Canada