June 2005

Maytree’s Newest Foundation Partner

The Maytree Foundation knows that leaders with good ideas and the capacity to realize their dreams are powerful tools for social change. David Pecaut is such a leader. As the head of the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, he galvanized prominent Toronto citizens to take action on ideas that would strengthen the city – ideas such as expanding the knowledge-based industry, reversing the decaying infrastructure of the city and creating affordable housing. David has a unique capacity to bring together people from different walks of life, work with them to arrive at a collective understanding of a problem, and then craft an action plan that everyone can buy into.

So when he approached us with the idea of forming the Boreal Institute to work with communities to solve complex problems, test out solutions and then replicate these across Canada, we were very receptive. Late in 2004, the Boreal Institute became the newest “foundation partner” of The Maytree Foundation.

As a first project, the Boreal Institute has chosen to focus on developing practical solutions faced by disadvantaged youth in Toronto. On April 14, 2005, more than 100 adults, youth and volunteers participated in the first Youth Forum in Rexdale. While the participants took a great deal of time to discuss challenging issues such as the increasing crime rate, youth unemployment and marginalization, a lack of adequate resources for sports or after-school programs or the frequent lack of knowledge of existing resources, the focus of the evening was clearly on action. A consultative process between the YMCA, local community organizations, and Rexdale youth is already being put in place in an effort to bring some of these suggestions to life in their community.

View photos from the youth Forum in Rexdale

Foundation and Partner Activities

Mark Starowicz, CBC journalist and producer of the television series, Canada: A People’s History, gave the keynote presentation. He combined his own family experience and research from the CBC series to frame the historical shaping of the Canadian identity through the experience of refuge, and through climate and vast distance. “The country is a collective project which requires us to construct new forms of community,” he concluded. “The Canadian immigrant experience must not be one of isolation, as it was for many in my generation, but an exercise in cross-cultural collaboration.” (For the full text, please see www.ideasthatmatter.com/discourse)

Morning and afternoon workshops were organized on topics such as collaboration, public space, civic engagement, leadership, building local institutions, community-based decision-making, and creating inclusive organizations. Highlights of the day included a new initiative supported by Maytree, Diaspora Dialogues, with presentations by writer Shyam Selvadurai and spoken word artist Belladonna, and the presentation of the seventh annual Jane Jacobs Prize by Mayor David Miller to Steve Munro, a transit activist.

The Caledon Institute of Social Policy released an important new report, assessing the 2005 Federal Budget relative to three principles they put forward in the pre-Budget consultations on the fiscal surplus: transparency, balance and purpose. The Vote or Veto Budget: An Analysis of the 2005 Federal Budget, by Ken Battle, Sherri Torjman, Michael Mendelson and Steve Pomeroy, March 2005, is available free of charge.

On the basis of these principles, they applaud the Budget for its support of early learning and child care, the historic increase in the Guaranteed Income Supplement for poor seniors and the tax measures for persons with disabilities. But they oppose its costly tax breaks that benefit only high-income Canadians and the general tax breaks that are spread so thinly as to be virtually wasted. In the view of these authors, the surplus could have been used far more effectively for social purposes such as targeted tax relief, reducing child poverty, expanding the supply of affordable housing and providing supports for seniors and persons with disabilities.

abcGTA

On May 12th, The Maytree Foundation launched a new initiative called abcGTA to address this lack of representation on agencies, boards and commissions (abc) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The initiative will facilitate the search for diverse candidates who are qualified, able and available to serve on boards of public institutions.

The launch heard from civic leader and trailblazer Zanana Akande; acting President of the University of Toronto, The Honourable Frank Iacobucci; and Helen Burstyn, Chair, Ontario Trillium Foundation. “A society can only be cohesive when it is inclusive. And we cannot build strong and vibrant communities that reflect only a part of our population. To be truly inclusive and representative of Toronto’s multi-cultural mosaic, today’s agencies, boards and commissions must capture the rich and different voices of our citizenry. The abcGTA project is designed to do just that,” said Ms Burstyn.

The abcGTA web-based directory of candidates currently features 100 profiles; this list will grow significantly in the future. The profiles can be viewed at www.abcGTA.ca. Candidates in our directory come from all walks of life but what they have in common is their commitment to serving the public good. By volunteering their time on boards, they want to contribute to the debate and to assist in seeking solutions, policies and services that reflect the interest of all citizens and communities in the GTA.

The next critical step in the process is to prompt public institutions to demonstrate their commitment to diversify their boards by pro-actively seeking nominations from candidates in our directory. They are also encouraged to cast a broader net by posting their vacancies on this website.

Diaspora Dialogues

At The Maytree Foundation, we have always looked on diversity as a real strength of this city, and potentially of the country. It is our view that we are all engaged in building a great country, that it is a hard task, and we need all hands on deck. All hands, no matter where they’re from or how long they’ve been here.

The work is made easier if we can see our landscape clearly. One of the principal ways of doing that is through literature. In our literature, we see reflections of ourselves and what we have made. And in such a diverse place as Toronto, whose image changes with each new arrival, we need to be looking constantly.

Diaspora Dialogues, a new project of the foundation, gives us that opportunity. Our purpose is two-fold. We want to provide an outlet for writers who are new to Canada, and may not yet have found their audience and market. And we want to provide longer-term residents of the region with an up-to-date picture of Toronto, of the city that exists as we experience it every day. This initiative will produce a book anthology of new work, and the fiction and poetry created will also be disseminated through mainstream print and radio partners.

Diaspora Dialogues launched May 19th with a mix of readings, staged drama, spoken word poetry, music and dance from established and emerging artists from Toronto’s immigrant communities. Project partners PEN Canada, the Toronto Public Library, the YMCA of Greater Toronto and local neighbourhood centres will host similar events across the broader Toronto region over the course of the year. See www.diasporadialogues.com for details.

Leaders for Change

Execute a much-needed transformation of a community centre in an at-risk neighbourhood, engage the community and particularly the youth in spearheading the effort, and help forge partnerships that aid future projects.

Of course, like any success story, much detailed preparation comes before that one day. Since October, the Framework Foundation and The Maytree Foundation’s Leaders for Change (LFC) have been working with the staff of the Firgrove Recreation Centre in the Jane/Finch neighbourhood and the young people who use the centre to identify their needs.

The initiative came about when a LFC team were looking for projects that met their criteria of being community-driven, youth-focused, and facilitated by volunteers. “We came from a slightly different model,” says Graeme Hussey, a team member. “We brought together the organizations, looked at what resources and strengths existed within that group, and then looked for a project with an established need we felt we could help facilitate.”

They heard of a project done by youth who had taken an aerial shot of their Jane-Finch neighbourhood, and mapped on top of it what things they didn’t like, such as too little lighting or too much policing, and what things they wanted to see, such as community gardens.

Over the course of seven months the team met with youth aged 8-21, as well as workers from TCHC to determine priorities and focus on projects that were doable. One of the common themes was the need for computers – to facilitate homework, web-based skills, and to aid in music recording. The project team thought they’d be able to leverage their contacts to raise the necessary money for the computers, but decided that, in order to accommodate the new equipment and make the space enjoyable for the youth, thus ensuring a greater sense of pride and ownership, the recreational area would need transformed.

A professional designer (Bruce Ward of OZ Design) volunteered to plan a make-over day (May 7) including helping map tasks – a Herculean effort given the more than fifty volunteers involved in ripping up carpets, cleaning, moving furniture and painting.

The major sponsor was BMO Financial group; others such as the Framework Foundation, Home Depot and TCHC gave smaller amounts, equipment and/or supplies. With the transformation completed, the computers will be delivered shortly. Training sessions will be scheduled for the youth who use the centre as well as train-the-trainer sessions for TCHC workers. The partnerships forged through this project have built bridges between organizations that might not have existed previously. For example, BMO is discussing with TCHC other projects.

Please note that the Leaders for Change Program 2005/2006 will start later this year. Further information will be available by mid-August 2005 on www.maytree.com.