Research and Community Development

The Independent Living Resource Centre Sudbury (ILSM) is proud to champion community inclusion, accessibility, and education through our ongoing programming and strategic partnerships.

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Led by the Sudbury Women’s Centre, the WHOLE Seniors Program focuses on social wellness, aligning directly with ILSM’s core values of connection and belonging. We recruit senior volunteers for meaningful roles across our organization and pair them with younger individuals who have newly acquired disabilities, building impactful intergenerational mentorships. To ensure those who are homebound remain connected, we are deploying a "digital bridge" using virtual and VR experiences.

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To directly improve community access, we send teams of senior volunteers and individuals with disabilities into the community to conduct physical accessibility audits for local businesses. These teams offer practical, real-world guidance on how businesses can improve their spaces and services. This hands-on work embodies our core philosophy: "Nothing about us without us." People with lived experience must be actively involved in every decision affecting their daily lives, from local business design to public infrastructure and provincial programs like ODSP.

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