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Refugee crisis: professors create Room for More to sponsor Syrian family

sgupta — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:26:16 +0000

Refugee crisis: professors create Room for More to sponsor Syrian family sgupta Tue, 12/08/2015 - 09:26

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“Every time I fly my kite, I feel free,” this boy from Daraa, Syria told Oxfam International at Zaatari refugee camp (photo courtesy Oxfam International via Flickr)

Elaine Smith

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Elaine Smith

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Our Community

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Room for More randomly picked a family living in a refugee camp in Lebanon. The Canadian government has since conducted a security screening of the mother and her five children, who range in age from eight to 21.

Meanwhile, Room for More hasn’t been sitting idle. Sponsoring groups are responsible for raising funds (ranging from $9,600 for a single refugee to $32,600 for a family of six) to cover family expenses during their first year in Canada. Thanks to donations, they have almost reached their goal, and by working through Humanity First, a charitable organization, their donations have tax-free status.

The group members are also responsible for developing a settlement plan that addresses all aspects of the family members’ new lives, including finding a family doctor, enrolling in English classes and getting housing. Each member of the group has specific tasks to handle.

Nagel and Tenenbaum have been busy hunting for an apartment for the family and have found one on the west side of Toronto. They're receiving furniture donations and plan to have the apartment ready when the family arrives.

“We’ll be moving it in for them so it will be all set up,” says Tenenbaum. “There will be no need for them to have temporary housing.”

Because the Syrian family speaks only Arabic and few members of Room for More have that skill, Tenenbaum reached out to the UTM Muslim Students Association and other groups for volunteer translators. He has assembled a team that can come in person or assist via video chats.

“We are looking forward to meeting the family, but we also want them to have privacy,” Nagel says. “They can call on us, but we won’t be interfering with their lives.”

The couple have enjoyed taking part in the sponsorship program and are eager to ensure that their charges “get settled and have a decent life here.” Once that is accomplished, they anticipate staying involved with refugee work and promoting the private sponsorship program, which is unique to Canada.

“The entire process has been lots of fun,” Nagel says. “There is a real community around this, and we have been struck by people’s generosity and kindness.”

Learn more about how you can help refugees

See the original of the above photo on Flickr

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Why Toronto gave this undergrad an International Student Award of Excellence for community service

sgupta — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 12:55:32 +0000

Why Toronto gave this undergrad an International Student Award of Excellence for community service sgupta Mon, 10/26/2015 - 08:55

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“I would like to make a difference in my home country, wherever I end up, whether it’s home in Ethiopia or Zimbabwe or here in Canada,” says global citizen Metasebia Assefa (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

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Don Campbell

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Global Lens

International

Undergraduate Students

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“My philosophy is pretty simple; if you see a problem go to the root of that problem.”

Where many only see Africa through the lens of poverty, corruption and despair, the University of Toronto's Metasebia Assefa sees nothing but opportunity for growth and development.

“Of course corruption and poverty leads to incredibly negative situations,” she says. “Rather than dwell on that despair, I’m motivated to do something about it.”

The fourth-year human biology and health studies student at UTSC is this year’s recipient of a City of Toronto International Student Award of Excellence for community service.

Assefa is truly a citizen of the world. Born in England before moving to Ethiopia, then Ghana and Kenya, and later the place dearest to her heart, Zimbabwe. It’s where she spent her teenage years and started on a course of helping others that continues today in her adopted city of Toronto.

In high school she started a club dedicated to digging a well and building a library in Kaymmadare, a small rural community outside of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. The project spoke to Assefa’s desire for sustainable development.

“There’s always a push for aid in Africa and often it’s helpful and necessary, but simply throwing money at a problem in the hopes it will go away can fuel corruption,” she says. “We wanted to equip this community with the tools, including education, so it can become self-sustaining.”

She also became involved with Mabvuku Math, a tutoring program started by her high school math teacher for children affected by HIV and AIDS.

“The communities we volunteered in are very vulnerable, filled with either the very young or the very old,” she says. “It’s usually left up to grandparents to raise children because their parents have either died or left because the medical costs of raising their children are too great.”

The most gratifying part of volunteering with the program, says Assefa, is that many of the children she helped tutor went on to be successful in math programs at university.

In Toronto she has volunteered as a program coordinator for sexual health and nutritional health with the Health and Wellness Centre while also organizing events for Free the Children and the Daily Bread Food Bank.

“My philosophy is pretty simple; if you see a problem go to the root of that problem,” she says. “Many of the issues in Africa are rooted in public health, so getting behind a program like a public education campaign on proper condom use could go a long way in reducing the rate of HIV/AIDS.”

Assefa’s immediate goal is to receive a master’s in public health before going to medical school. Wherever it takes her, her plan is to make a positive impact in the world.

“I would like to make a difference in my home country, wherever I end up, whether it’s home in Ethiopia or Zimbabwe or here in Canada,” she says. “I just want to make a difference.”

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How persistence – and the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games – paid off in affordable housing

sgupta — Fri, 08 May 2015 11:46:27 +0000

How persistence – and the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games – paid off in affordable housing sgupta Fri, 05/08/2015 - 07:46

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Alumna Cynthia Wilkey has spent decades working on the transformation of the West Don Lands from a brownfield to a sustainable, mixed-use community (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Jelena Damjanovic

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Jelena Damjanovic

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Subheadline

Faculty of Law alumna Cynthia Wilkey and her decades-long fight for a mixed-income, mixed-use neighbourhood

When the Toronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Games are over and the athletes pack their bags, approximately 250 apartments in the Athletes' Village will be turned over to affordable housing.

And Cynthia Wilkey’s long- fought battle for a safe, sustainable, mixed-income neighbourhood will come to a happy end.

A Faculty of Law graduate and lawyer who has dedicated her career to labour law and advocacy on behalf of low-income residents, Wilkey has dedicated decades to this project. She’s one of the founding members of the West Don Lands Committee. That’s the coalition of neighbourhood organizations working with Waterfront Toronto and driving the revitalization of the area where the Toronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Games Athlete’s Village is located.

The West Don Lands came into public ownership when the city and the province decided to expropriate the land in 1988 and turn it into a new, mixed-income neighbourhood. But in 1993 the project was abandoned because of escalating costs, unresolved flood protection and contamination issues.

The land was transferred to the province, which put it on the market and in 1997 the community learned that it would be sold to a harness racing facility.

“We were horrified, because the West Don Lands had been derelict for many years,” says Wilkey. “We thought there had to be something better to do with 80 acres in public ownership, a 20-minute walk from the financial centre of Toronto, 10-minute walk to the waterfront, at the end of the Don River.”

The race track bid fell apart but the scare galvanized the community into forming the West Don Lands Committee and figuring out what they wanted to happen with the land, says Wilkey.

Just around that time, Toronto was bidding for the 2008 Olympic Games; the West Don Lands area was identified as a potential media village.

“We thought that if they were planning something, we wanted to be part of it,” says Wilkey.

With the help of a community capacity building grant from the federal government, her group was able to mount a very sophisticated workshop that involved developers, financiers, designers, engineers, and members of the community all working together to identify the opportunities and obstacles to the redevelopment of the lands. Among the attendees: Robert Fung, who had been tapped by Jean Chretien, Mel Lastman and Mike Harris to head up a task force to look at the viability of revitalizing the waterfront as part of Toronto’s Olympic bid.

Toronto lost the bid, but the Fung task force recommended the creation of Waterfront Toronto, with the West Don Lands as one of the star projects.

But, just when Waterfront Toronto was ready to go out to the market to start selling the land, the global financial crisis hit and the market disappeared.

“We thought, what happens next? Is this going to be another huge setback? Are we going to have another decade of dereliction on these lands?” Wilkey remembers.

Enter the Toronto 2015 Pan Am/ParaPan Games. Wilkey was recruited by Pan Am to sit on the Community Engagement Council – a group of representatives of various communities and constituencies that would advise Pan Am organizers.

“I come at this not so much from the sporting angle but from the legacy angle, because the Athlete’s Village is a huge legacy for the provincial government and for Pan Am,” says Wilkey, “and one of the priorities of the West Don Lands Committee was to ensure that there was affordable housing included in this neighbourhood.”

Thanks to Wilkey’s group, the number of affordable housing units will total 500: along with the 250 units being constructed for the Games, another 250 have already been built by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation on the lands.

“The Pan Am units are being built now like market condos and they're being set up for the athletes’ accommodation but starting in September they'll be refit so that they can be turned into affordable housing,” says Wilkey, adding the energy efficiency of the units is expected to achieve the LEED gold certification for environmental sustainability.

Once Pan Am organizers got involved, Wilkey’s dream of a mixed-income and mixed-use neighbourhood started to become a reality – with the construction of the Canary District private condos, a 500-bed residence for George Brown college students and a brand new community centre: the Cooper Koo YMCA. As well, a block of land on Cherry St. that will be used for the dining tent during the games will provide a new location for Anishnawbe Health Toronto, after the Games.

“Members of the West Don Lands Committee look at this and we're very proud of this work,” says Wilkey. “We look back at 1997 and think: if we hadn't made this fuss, we could have ended up with just a race track and video gaming terminals, and it would have been a huge mistake.”

But, rather than slow down now, Wilkey is gearing for the next big battle for the greater good.

“Oh there's so much to do,” she says. “There's the Portland's planning and the re-naturalization of the mouth of the Don River. We continue to be key stakeholders for that work. We're still here keeping an eye out for the community.”

Wilkey is also working with one of the Pan Am community celebration sub-committees on a web-based Pan Am Fiesta in a Box to be launched shortly. Aimed at encouraging and helping Torontonians who want to have a Pan Am celebration in their community, neighbourhood, business or school, it will include advice and ideas about food and music.

She’s also involved with the Athlete’s Village local host committee, developing a neighbourhood guide for the athletes and visitors which will feature the communities around the Athlete’s Village: St. Lawrence neighbourhood, the Distillery District, Corktown, Regent Park, Riverside (Queen/Broadview area) as well as 85 kilometres of trails of the Pan Am path.

And, yes, she will be going to the Games. “I have tickets to the opening ceremony designed by the Cirque du Soleil. I'm very excited about that. I think it should be fantastic.”

Jelena Damjanovic writes about community-building at U of T News.

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Volunteer

Refugee crisis: professors create Room for More to sponsor Syrian family

Read more about the refugee crisis

Visit Room for More

Learn more about how you can help refugees

Why Toronto gave this undergrad an International Student Award of Excellence for community service

How persistence – and the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games – paid off in affordable housing