Stories of Place
Why Stories of Place
Belonging is central to human flourishing. We find it in relationships, in places that feel like home, in the freedom to shape our own lives and in connection to something larger than ourselves. Yet belonging rarely happens by accident. It is built, or weakened, through ordinary encounters, institutional practices and the stories a community chooses to hear.
Stories of Place brings those stories into a shared room. Over five Gatherings, writers and storytellers from across the Fraser Valley reflect on arriving and staying, on being welcomed and learning to welcome. Some stories begin with a journey here. Others begin with life here, now. Together, they ask: What makes a place feel like home—and who gets to feel at home in it?
Each story puts a person where a category used to be. Listening doesn't erase difference; it makes difference more fully human, and harder to reduce to stereotype.
No single event can create belonging. Returning again and again over fourteen months gives trust time to grow, carrying us from listening to understanding, and from understanding to taking part in the community we share.
Come hear the stories that shape this place. Then help shape what comes next.
The Minds Behind the Series
Ted Yudelson
Series Founder & Curator
Co-Chair, Fraser Valley Human Dignity Coalition
Founder, The Human Dignity Project
Inaam Charaf
Moderator & Convener
Chair, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee at the Faculty of Education, Community & Human Development, UFV
Raymonde Tickner
Literary Advisor & Co-Moderator
Co-editor, Geographies of the Heart: Stories from Newcomers to Canada (UBC Press, 2024)
An overview of the series
We know when we belong. We know when we don't. But what actually creates that feeling — the sense that we are not simply living somewhere, but are recognized, welcomed and part of it?
Belonging is rarely accidental. It is not conferred by policy or produced by programming. It is made in small moments — a name said correctly, a door held open, a story finally heard — and it is felt most sharply by whoever does not yet have it.
Stories of Place explores that through five connected gatherings. Each begins with stories and lived experience, then makes room for people in the audience to listen, reflect and talk with one another. Each gathering stands on its own. Together they trace a larger journey.
Because belonging is not something we simply find.
It is something we make together.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF BELONGING
Belonging, like a building, is made of parts that depend on one another. Each Gathering explores one of them.
WELCOME: Belonging begins with being received and accepted
Gathering One: Belonging Begins with Welcome
October 23 2026
Belonging can begin with something small: a name learned, a language recognized, an invitation extended. This chapter explores the first encounters that make it clear there may be a place for us here.
What makes a person feel expected, rather than merely tolerated?
HOME: Belonging grows in the places we make our own
Gathering Two: When Does Here Become Home?
February 26 2027
Arrival can happen in a day; belonging usually takes longer. This chapter explores how language, routines, friendships and memories slowly turn a place we live into a place that feels like home.
When does a place you live in become a place you are from?
OPPORTUNITY: Belonging deepens when we can shape our own lives
Gathering Three: Opening Doors
April 23 2027
Every community has doors into friendship, opportunity and participation. Some open easily; others depend on someone making room. This chapter explores what allows people not simply to be present, but to take part.
What does it take to open a door - and what does it take to walk through one?
RELATION: Belonging is held in kinship and responsibility
Gathering Four: The ground beneath it all (Led by Stó:lō voices)
Mid-October 2027
The first three chapters ask how people come to belong. Chapter Four turns the question around, exploring belonging through relationship, kinship, responsibility and obligation. It will be shaped in partnership with Indigenous participants connected to Stó:lō communities.
If belonging isn't held by land alone, what holds it?
VOICE: Belonging is made real when a person is heard in their own words
Gathering Five: When a Stranger Becomes a Neighbour
Late November 2027
A community holds many histories and journeys. The final chapter asks how they can be heard together without becoming one story - and how recognition and relationship can turn strangers into neighbours.
What changes when someone stops being a stranger?
The Series Presenters
EDI Committee
UFV Faculty of Education, Community & Human Development
Fraser Valley Human Dignity Coalition
