Upcoming Events
May 8 & 9th, 2025GuelphMay 8 & 9th, 2025Guelph, 50 Stone Rd E, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, CanadaMay 8 & 9th, 2025Guelph, 50 Stone Rd E, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, CanadaAbstract submissions are now OPEN. Explore the diverse experiences of racialized communities in rural Ontario. This two-day in-person workshop at the University of Guelph will feature multidisciplinary research, engaging presentations, & insightful keynote speakers.
Thu, Feb 29Online Workshop (Recorded)Feb 29, 2024, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.Online Workshop (Recorded)
Our Annual
Opportunities: Join Our Team
Holiday Sale
Apply Today
The People’s Archive of Rural Ontario (PARO) is looking for passionate and dedicated individuals to join our team. We currently have paid, and volunteer openings on the following teams:
Story Curation Team: Help us discover and document the stories of rural Ontario. As a Story Curator, you'll collaborate with storytellers to bring their experiences to life using multimedia formats like text, audio, video, and photography.
Social Media Team: Are you savvy with social media and passionate about rural issues? Join our Social Media Team and help us spread the word about the incredible stories and work being done at PARO. Your role will involve content creation, strategy development, and community engagement across our platforms.
Steering Committee: Contribute to the governance and direction of PARO by joining our Steering Committee. This is a unique opportunity to represent the interests of students and rural communities, provide strategic guidance, and help shape the future of PARO.
We Are A Rural Repository
Rural Ontario is not just one thing – one experience, one type of land, one form of community. A farming community within striking distance of Toronto and a First Nations community in Northern Ontario will have very different stories to tell about their experiences of rural life. The People’s Archive of Rural Ontario (PARO) is a living archive of rural Ontario – a widely accessible, ever-growing, online, multimedia repository.
PARO aims to mobilize and amplify rural voices and stories and to contribute to the revitalization of rural Ontario. It was developed to organize, preserve, and make freely accessible the records and voices of rural Ontarians.
PARO is currently engaged in collecting stories, highlighting personal and community narratives of rural resilience from a broad range of sources to be produced for the archive in forms of text, audio, video, and/or photography.
PARO welcomes submissions from all persons, particularly those who identify as Indigenous, racialized, or have disabilities, and from persons of all sexual identities and gender identities.
Join the conversation on ROIConnect
Connect with us on our new interactive networking platform in partnership with the Rural Ontario Institute
Would you like to dive deeper into themes in PARO’s stories and connect with others who share your rural passions?
You can join the conversation on PARO’s ROI Connect project page The Rural Ontario Institute (ROI) is a charitable not-for-profit established in 2010 to develop strong leaders with critical voices to address opportunities and key issues facing rural and northern Ontario.
ROI Connect is an online gathering place that offers you a place to come together to share ideas and information, talk about issues that are important to you, and to mobilize conversations and change across rural Ontario communities. PARO has a community project page, a virtual ‘meeting place’ on ROI Connect where you can interact with each other, connect with others interested in similar topics, share ideas and practice tips, and strategize to turn stories into action.