Into the County: A Day of Creativity, Community, and Roots & Resilience

Written by Nahom Assefa

There are moments in the city where the pace of winter catches up to you like the constant busyness, the cold that makes leaving the house feel like a negotiation. So when the opportunity came to step away for a day, drive out of Halifax, and help facilitate a workshop in the Nova Scotia countryside, saying yes felt less like a decision and more like a reflex.

The day was part of Roots & Resilience: Community Gathering, which took place on May 9–10 in Debert, NS, organized in collaboration with X Helping Hands. The event brought together communities around themes of wellness and safety, climate

Invited by Tavneen Kaur, founder of X Helping Hands, the drive out was shared with Jacquelyn Miccolis, Founder and Executive Director of CCIA, alongside fellow board members Kirsten Bashir and Colleen Faustino Small. The four of us set off from Halifax on a clear morning with spring quietly hinting at its arrival. I wasn't sure whether the rural landscape would bring relief or simply trade the city's bite for the Maritimes' signature wind chill. An hour and a non-stop car conversation later, we arrived at the Debert Hospitality Centre, and what greeted us wasn't the cold gust I had braced for, rather the whistle of wind and our footsteps across the grounds.

By the time we walked in, the room had already come alive. Jacquelyn had set up the watercolour station, and the CCIA team was helping distribute supplies to an audience of around 14 participants, a mix of young adults, older community members, and voices rooted in BIPOC communities across Nova Scotia. Muffins, snacks, and hot drinks were tucked into the back corner of the hall, and people settled in comfortably as introductions began.

The hours moved naturally from sharing our names and backgrounds to painting on shared paper, and eventually to watercolours, with Jacquelyn guiding everyone toward ease with the medium. As a digital artist, watercolour was genuinely new terrain for me. There's something about working with water and pigment that resists control in the best way. I found myself seeking input from Jacquelyn and other attendees, and by the end of the session, what had started as a room of strangers had shifted into new connections made over brushstrokes and shared stories.

As a director on the CCIA board, being part of a gathering where work and community aren't separate things instead hand in hand, which shows the importance of initiatives like this.

We're grateful to Tavneen Kaur and X Helping Hands for the invitation to collaborate, and to everyone who made the day what it was. More to come as the month continues to unfold.