Strategic Partnership

Toronto Arts Council partnered with ArtReach Toronto to increase access and opportunities for cultural participation for youth across the City. ArtReach brings its signature high-engagement approach to grant making, which combines mentoring and capacity building assistance for the grant recipients, as well as funding for their projects. Through its established networks that reach youth, it has enabled TAC to streamline the process by which we engage and invest in Toronto’s emerging artists, youth and under-served communities.

ArtReach Toronto recipients (2014):

*2014 funds support projects that take place in 2014 and/or 2015

• Act Out Youth Theatre: Triple Threat Intensive Program is a 5-week artistic development program offering drama, vocal and dance training to 30 youth in communities across Scarborough. The project offers 3 days of programming weekly and includes a trip to a professional theatre production. Participants work with a team of young mentors from the community for the development and presentation of a final showcase.
• Baby Steps Parenting: Turn the Page is a 15-week set of interactive storytelling workshops for young mothers and their children in the Lawrence Heights neighbourhood. Participants will create a storybook for their child that will be published in a collective of short children’s stories. Participants will read their section of the book at an intimate event for friends and family. 
• Bay Mills Youth Council: Access Art is a media arts program for youth from the Chester Le, Malvern, Galloway/Danzig and Bay Mills Blvd areas. Youth participants will attend knowledge and skill building opportunities together at a series of workshops, and will then work independently with the support of mentors to direct short films highlighting artists and positive stories from their communities, to be screened at a final event.
• Blossom: Blossom is a 25-week long, free holistic fashion program for 15 young Muslim women in the Mount Dennis and Dixon areas of Toronto. The program includes courses in fashion illustration, hijab pin creation, sewing, pattern drafting, marketing, branding, mentorship and fashion photography over a five month period. The culmination of the program will be a fashion show for their community.
• Dream House Collective: Dream House Arts Event Planning project will curate 4 events that involve music, art and fashion, and use them as training opportunities for youth to develop skills in arts event production and management. Mentors provide training in curation, stage setup and design, prop design, live sound setup, and more depending on the interests of the groups. The program gives increasingly more responsibility to participants with each consecutive event. 
• Encontrarte Youth Arts Initiative is a Latin American youth arts and dance project that promotes Hispanic culture in our community through dance and theatre. Over the course of 8 months, Hispanic youth (aged 13-24) will receive lessons in a variety of Latino dance forms, choreograph their own 16-count sequences which will all be performed at 6 performances at community events Toronto, at the International Youth Theatre Festival (pending acceptance), and in a final showcase.
• Eritrean Youth Collective: The World of Work Project will explore an intergenerational 'world of work' of Eritrean parents and youth. This program will be offered to 5 participants in the Photo Stream and 5 participants in the storytelling stream. Youth will be offered skill development in their chosen art forms and create pieces that share the struggles, reality, hopes and perspectives of employment of their parents through their eyes, while simultaneously depicting their own personal dreams and aspirations. A multi-media website will showcase the final works.
• Fright Film School will give 25 Hispanic youth in the West end of Toronto (Dufferin – Kipling) the chance to make a series of short horror films. Over the course of 4 months, participants will build skills in the areas of film, Super 8 film, digital video, writing, drawing (story boards), sound and music and produce films to be screened at the Revue Cinema. 
• GirlX: Redefining Leadership is a 6-week pilot project that will provide young women ages 13-18 with skill-building opportunities in the areas of creative writing/poetry and photography. Youth mentors will facilitate 2-3 hour workshops in Haiku, spoken word, narrative writing and collective creation with a focus on enhancing participants’ life skills and knowledge of politics, media and themselves. The group will produce a zine to be launched at a community event.
• Jayu: The Hashtag Street Photography Project is a collaboration between Jayu, Community Story Strategies, six Toronto-based photographers and the homeless population at Horizons for Youth, a youth shelter in Toronto. This 8-week project will empower youth to share their stories through the photography skills they will acquire from this project.
• Mehdia & Maryam Hassan will offer a series of visual arts workshops that follows a successful summer pilot program. In partnership with St. James Town Community Corner (SJCC), community artists Media and Mayam will offer workshops in print and ceramics to 12 youth, ages 13 and up. Activities include workshops, art lessons, field trips and working sessions for each participant to create a completed work.
• Newcomer Girls Action Committee: ReShaped & ReImagined is a 16-week program for newcomer and racialized young women (ages 12-19) who wish to express their creativity and skills through fashion entrepreneurship. 25 newcomer and/or racialized girls will be provided with group work and practical skills based training to modify vintage clothing, discuss issues at the intersection of fashion and politics and publicise their creations and thoughts via a blog.
• The Passion: The Passion is a 3-month long youth-led urban arts program that aims to engage 20 youth (13-29) in York South-Weston through Spoken Word. Following a series of workshops, program participants and leaders will complete a 12-track CD of original spoken word material. Participants will also have the chance to write artists bios and get professional photos for their portfolios. The album will be launched with an event.
• Power To Girls Foundation: Untold Stories: Through My Lens is a 12-week creative self-expression program for girls between the ages of 14-20. Using photography and storytelling, the program will provide girls in the Rexdale community with a supportive space to develop balance, resilience and purpose, expressing these themes through their photos, which will be displayed in a public exhibition.
• R.I.S.E. Edutainment: The Excel Program will work with 8 youth from across the GTA to develop skills in live vocal performance, artistic development, and arts focused professional business practice through mentorship and supported participation in the R.IS.E. This project will also invest in R.I.S.E’s organizational capacity through the training of 3 professional artists in workshop facilitation training from the NIA Centre. RISE staff will be also be mentored on project coordination from City of Toronto Staff and evaluation from a professional evaluator.
• Say Word Media Issue 5: Say Word Media Issue 5. This project would bring together 5 alumni of the Say Word program, to facilitate media arts workshops/programming to other youth interested in journalism, creative writing, photography and graphic design in Scarborough's underserved neighbourhoods. The group will work together to create another issue of the Say Word Magazine, to be distributed as Scarborough's only for-youth, by-youth magazine for the community. 
• SoundCheck: Play Our Sound project is a one-year beginner-intermediate level musical instruction and mentorship program for racialized youth ages 15-24 in the Weston Mount Dennis community. The program uses music to teach youth new skills (on one of four instruments) and provides meaningful leadership opportunities to youth within the community. Unique focus is placed on developing bands and providing meaningful performance opportunities.
• SPEAKout Poetry & Ink Veins: the Poetry Collage will provide 5 months of spoken word performance and writing workshop series for young women of diverse backgrounds, with a focus on creative writing, presentations skills, leadership development and confidence building. Participants will have the opportunity to put what they learn into practice at 3 bi-monthly open mic events.
• SpeakSudan: Young African Men Theatre Program is a 16-week theatre program for youth to write, create, produce and stage a theatre production under the guidance of artist mentors. The program will engage 15 youth and 20 mentors in its 32 session duration using play writing, stage management, set design, event planning, performance, acting, lighting, graphic design, as well as open sessions for rehearsals. The program will culminate in a performance of the original material developed. 
• Spoke N' Heard: The K.N.O.W.N. Program is a Rexdale based creative arts and life-skills program that provides intensive training to youth ages 14–25. Participants will develop skills through 20 workshops in spoken word, emceeing and acting, lead by mentors from the Spoke N'Heard network. Participants will be supported to audition for community arts showcases, including the Unity Conference. The program will be documented and turned into a film. 
• Stolen From Africa: Saving OurSelves (SOS) is a series of multi-media and cross-cultural arts development retreats for 45 youth marginalized by mainstream education. Emerging youth artists will collaborate with professional youth artists to produce mixed media productions.
• The Stud Magazine: The Stud Magazine is a dynamic and comprehensive look into the topics, issues and the lifestyles of non-gender conforming females. This magazine will shift thoughts and cause individuals to see gender differently. This project will provide writing workshops for youth, publish 2 online issues of the magazine and offer panel discussions to raise awareness of the initiative and issues it addresses. 
• Toronto Emerging ARTivists: Enviro ARTivism Installations: The Toronto Emerging ARTivists will increase the membership of the group by 10 young people and working together, will install 3 eco-art installations within Thorncliffe/Flemingdon Park. The project will include a series of pop-bottle planter and stencilled moss art installations as well as an environmentally themed mural.
• Unravel: Unravel is a free interactive program for 8-10 young women of colour, black women and indigenous women residing in East Scarborough. The project will include intensive media literacy training, introduction to film production/roles, screenwriting and creative story telling. This project will be executed in a 7-month period and the final product will be a small film showcase including parents and friends. 
• Agjee, Zahra: The Truth and Dare Project provides a series of photo-based, mixed media workshops for young Muslim women. The workshops will strengthen identity through exploration, build confidence, and create a sense of belonging. Through two six-session workshops, and two 3-session workshops, up to forty youth will be served from various areas in the GTA, including Malvern, Flemingdon Park, Teesdale, and Lawrence Heights. 
• Anderson, Justin: Champions is an after school martial arts program developed to help 16 young men and women that are facing frequent suspensions at school in the Malvern community, due to fighting and violence. Our aim is to create leaders with these youth and teach integrity, courage, and self-control while promoting anti-violence through Tae-Kwon-Do. Participants will demonstrate the sequences and skills developed in a final showcase.
• de Belen, Patrick:  PSL Poetry is Our Second Language is a 5-week workshop series that offers a critical curriculum and training in poetry writing and spoken word performance to young Filipino Canadians. The workshop will run twice for 5 youth in each session and will produce a published chapbook (a small poetry publication) and blog for the program.
• Dela Cruz, Ryan: UBUNTU is a 6-month dance program for 9 Scarborough Youth facilitated by Krump group Bucc N Flvr. The program will be documented in a film addressing the process and life experiences of youth participants, AND the project will culminate in a series of community performances.
• Fearon, Alyssa: The Scarborough Project: You Are Here is an arts-education project for newcomer, first generation and Indigenous youth, living in Kingston-Galloway. Over a period of 10 weeks, participants aged 14-16 will learn the Indigenous history of Scarborough and be introduced to still and moving image production, editing, and narrative writing; explore themes of location and displacement; community-building; and identities. Participants will create arts pieces with the support of artist mentors. 
• Gayle, Mel: Not Lost: A Grief Writing Project is a peer-led creative writing workshop for 10 youth aged 16-29 who have lost a loved one. Providing creative and empathetic support to those living with loss, it will prioritize folks facing intersectional barriers including Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, queer and trans spectrum and sick/disabled youth.
• Lam, Mandy: Fly Free is a one week long camp teaching the art of Parkour to 10 young women in the Rockcliffe-Symthe (Weston Mt. Dennis) neighbourhood. Held in a Parkour facility, workshops and discussions are added to technical development and choreography to build self-confidence and skills. The project will end in a final demonstration.
• Tong, Connie: Plate It Up is an eight-month program that fuses ceramics and culinary arts for 12 youth (ages 13-18) in Kingston/Galloway-Orton Park. This program will provide participants with a meaningful art-based experience in clay while cultivating opportunities for creative expression and collaboration, culminating in a community exhibition where participants will serve dishes they made on the ceramic wares they created. 
• Zola, Joel: Street Voices is a collective of youth artists that live in the shelter system. They are offering weekly workshops in creative writing, graphic design and videography training to youth, to support them to develop skills and transfer their experiences into creative outputs. The group will publish 3 magazines, each launched with their own event.