Tuesday July 28 started off as a regular day. As students walked into Osgoode Hall Law School they grabbed breakfast then headed to the auditorium for morning announcements. After quickly being dismissed from the auditorium, they walked towards their classes. As the morning progressed, students had no idea the surprise they were in for…
Learn more about the day by clicking the link below:
Over the years, York University has made a concerted effort to engage the community it finds itself in, Jane and Finch. One successful way it has done so is through the York University Faculty Association (YUFA). Read more about the relationship between YUFA and Jane and Finch.
http://www.academicmatters.ca/2015/06/more-than-a-bargaining-unit-york-university-faculty-associations-commitment-to-social-unionism/
SBL will be presenting at this meeting. Please see attachments for details.
It’s never to early to play some beach volleyball. This past March, SBL broke out into teams and had some fun at Beach Blast. We took to the sand and had great laughs as some developed new skills while others brushed up on past ones. This event was part of our March Break program. Check out our March Break report which can be found on our website.
Below is a video that captures SBL at Beach Blast.
The Pan Am Games are steadily approaching; in fact they are just around the corner. To that end, Success Beyond Limits (SBL) continues to engage students in sports recreation that promotes a healthy lifestyle while at the same time getting Toronto’s young people ready and engaged for the Pan Am games! MJKO and SBL are combining efforts to get youth involved in the world of boxing at the Harbour front Community Centre.
MJKO staff and volunteers train youth of diverse backgrounds on how to properly throw boxing combinations with the appropriate form, along with cardio activities that stretch the young people passed their limits – all of this while learning how to throw a proper right jab and left hook. SBL recognizes the reality that many young people deal with a lot in their respective lives, which may contribute to the tensions, pressures and stresses built up in their lives over time. Unfortunately, sometimes this tension leads to bad decisions being made in their lives as evidence of tensions spilling over. For this reason, SBL sees it necessary for young people to be actively involved in healthy physical activity that allows for the release of tension with one of many outcomes being the promotion of healthy communication.
SBL sees an importance for youth to have outlets to deal with tensions built over time through recreational activities such as boxing and other physical activity. Through providing youth with opportunities and activities for healthy exercise, that helps and aid in keeping our participants busy and active with the hopes of a more positive outcome in life. SBL’s Austen Lettmen who expressed his interest in boxing along with a couple of other like-minded students, was connected to the MJKO boxing crew through Success Beyond Limits staff. Austen confessed early on that he had never taken a downtown streetcar and before the boxing opportunity, he never had a good enough reason to leave Jane-Finch. That comment was very profound as it validates the need for SBL to continually expose young people to experiences and opportunities that otherwise would not come their way. SBL commends MJKO for all the selfless work they are doing as they have contributed to the positive exposure of our youth to healthy physical activity.
A group of motivated SBL youth engaged in a working interview session with employees from H&M Toronto. The session was a great success, where youth learned a great deal about the retail industry and what it takes to build a career in fashion & retail.
As a result of this amazing collaboration, 10 SBL youth have now secured employment with H&M!
Check out our 2015 March Break video created by Sariena Luy. She is a young videographer who has done exceptional work this past year.
The successful launch of our 2015 March Break “Employment Readiness and Career Exploration” program, which was held downtown at the Mozilla community space, is now available in a report.
SBL-MarchBreakReport-2015_FINAL
After a successful application to Hive’s Remixable Open Educational Resources grant, SBL decided to put together five online narratives and five workshops to be shared through a teaching kit. The teaching kit was designed to share our learnings through the lens of best-practices for working in partnership and collaboration with youth facing multiple barriers. This has also been a great way to share our expertise with HIVE Toronto members http://hivetoronto.org/ and the wider community as well as have a living document for SBL’s own training and programming purposes. Below are the short descriptions of the workshop topics and links to the full teaching kits.
Re-Thinking Mentorship:
A broadened definition of mentorship in engaging potential youth leaders.
https://sbl.makes.org/thimble/LTM0MDAwMDUxMg==/re-thinking-mentorship
Designing Against Barriers to Participation:
Integral to our program design is the recognition and identification of barriers to participation and then focusing resources at removing those barriers.
https://sbl.makes.org/thimble/MTE2OTA5Njk2MA==/barriers-to-participation
Bricolage: Youth-Led, Youth-Focused, Youth-Driven:
People talk about youth organizations as youth-led, youth-focused, or youth-driven, but we can share the importance of being a combination of all of them.
https://sbl.makes.org/thimble/LTQwODAyNjg4MA==/make-your-own-teaching-kit
Graduation Model and Program Design:
Deepening the impact of our core programming through extending the opportunities for youth to be deeply engaged pre and post.
https://sbl.makes.org/thimble/MTM1MzY0NjMzNg==/growth-model
Intentionality in Relationship Building:
The way that we create programming and space to build relationships which makes all of the other outcomes, projects, programs and engagement possible.
https://sbl.makes.org/thimble/MjEyNzk1NjQ4/make-your-own-teaching-kit
March break this year was very successful on many levels. A lot of great work has been coming out of the Jane and Finch community. Sabrina ‘Butterfly’ GoPaul along with others have held a week long conference from March 16-20 at Yorkgate mall Community Engagement Centre (CEC).
This conference continued the conversation of urban planning in the community and how it relates to residents lived experience i.e Line 9, TTC, gentrification etc. SBL has forwarded two names to participate in the project. Matthew Alay and Natonia Laing were able to contribute, share their thoughts, and learn from others involved. Below is art work from Matthew who has never painted before. During the week, individuals were allowed to paint as part of the workshop process. Matthew felt he could think more clearly after finishing a painting and it greatly helped his input on daily topics that week.
