Enhancing Neighbourhoods By Engaging Youth In Community Development Through The Arts!

Impact

report2012-2013

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MISSION & MANDATEUrbanArts is a non-profit Community Arts Council focused on enhanc-ing neighbourhoods by engaging youth in community development through the arts. UrbanArts initiates arts activities that bring people to-gether in central-west Toronto and city wide. One of four community arts councils across Toronto, UrbanArts is an incubator for local arts, with a range of programs led by professional artists in visual art, theatre, dance and music.

Our mandate is to promote, engage and facilitate cultural and commu-nity development opportunities between artists, arts organizations and community members and community organizations.

URBANARTS MANIFESTOUrban Arts is committed to accessibility, equity & accountability. Through our innovative youth arts programs, inclusive space & diverse staff, we are working to create an environment where all of our community feels welcome, safe & celebrated.

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES• Focus on High Density Communities To serve and service neglected high-density communities in the west of Toronto.

• Encourage Positive Cultural Diversity To celebrate and encourage the astounding cultural diversity in these communities.

• Focus on Youth and Youth Facing Barriers To provide arts opportunities at a beginner and intermediate level to youth, especially youth facing barriers such as income, race, sexuality, and gender. To provide these youth outlets for their energy and talents and show them pathways to excellence.

• Leverage the Experience of Professional Artists and Community Members To allow professional artists and mature members of all communities to communicate the skills and knowledge of generations to the youth of communities.

• Beautification of High Density Communities To beautify focus communities through the arts and create an atmosphere in communities that is beneficial for communication, celebration and commerce.

• Excellence in Youth Arts To provide quality programs and services that will allow youth to achieve their full artistic potential.

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ARTISTIC POLICYWe aim to provide artistic activity for youth that will allow them to im-prove their neighbourhoods by

• self improvement through skills training, high quality artistic experience and employment• improving physical environments through artistic design• enhancing local neighbour relations by spreading values of inclusion, diversity, civic and country pride and most of all critical thought

2012-2013 Programs

After School Arts Program (ASAP)• Comedy (sketch/improv/stand-up program)• Dancer’s Boot Camp (dance program) • Road 2 Leadership (leadership training program)• Say Word?! (spoken word program) • Snack’N’Chat (discussion/drop-in program) • Y-Arts (visual arts program)

Beats.Mind.Movement (in-studio music production program)Beats.Mind.Movement Mobile (Music production program)It’s a Girl Thing! Young Women’s Leadership Program (IGT)Young Men of Honour Leadership Development ProgramSummerArts• Community Arts Experience Summer Camp• Dancer’s Boot Camp

MuralArts Program

Photography with Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography2012-2013 Highlights

• Completed the majority of renovations on our new site• Expanded to deliver programs at more schools than ever • Hosted many successful events and workshops as the lead Recipe for Community partner in Weston-Mount Dennis• Launched the new UrbanArts website at www.urbanartstoronto.org• Hosted our annual CultureShock Community Arts Festival, Dance Showcase, Young Women’s Leadership Forum, Young Men’s Leadership Forum and WinterExpo events• Hired 13 youth for summer projects• Hosted 4 interns from local colleges and universities• Created our largest mural to date in partnership with StreetARToronto (StART), Metrolinx and Frontlines with support from the Weston Historical Society• Doubled our social media following and engagement• Served over 1000 youth and community members

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This has been an extremely event-ful year for UrbanArts! Coming off of a year wherein we expanded programs and services, increased the number of youth we serve and have come close to completing the renovations on our new space, we have achieved a great number of milestones.

UrbanArts continues to break through barriers as we grow and develop to meet the needs of our community and the young peo-ple we serve. Having celebrated our 25th year of service, we are extremely proud of the strides we have made and the partnerships we have developed. We have ventured to take risks that would bring us to another level of service delivery and engagement. That has paid off by bringing us new funding, new partners and an in-creased profile in the arts commu-nity and across the city.

Our Board of Directors continues to take the lead in our efforts to ad-vance our presence in many dif-ferent spheres. Along with our staff and other volunteers they continue to work to transform UrbanArts to better meet the ever-changing needs of our youth while remain-ing in tune with the changing land-scape.

In the last year, as a result of ongo-ing advocacy work with our sister arts organizations including the Lo-cal Arts Service Organizations (LA-SOS), BeautifulCity.ca, TAPA and the Toronto Arts Council/Toronto Arts Foundation, we have seen marked increases in funding to the

arts at the City of Toronto. To that end, the LASOs have developed a four-year business plan presented to the City in support of our ongo-ing work to access increased fund-ing to build the infrastructure needs of our organizations and sector. This includes sustainable and effec-tive staffing, funding and program-ming resources.

Our lead role with the Recipe for Community, Weston-Mount Den-nis initiative has seen an infusion of over $100,000 in investments from the Toronto Community Founda-tion as well as an extraordinary lev-el of in-kind services and donations from the initiative’s partners (ING-Direct, Humber College, ACCESS Community Capital and others) to support community and youth en-gagement activities across Weston-Mount Dennis. A number of local organizations have received funds to carry out a variety of activities across the neighbourhood. As the initiative winds down in the next few months, we will produce a unique recipe book containing recipes and stories from our local neighbourhood.

Renovations to our new space are well under way and we anticipate a move to our new location in the fall of 2013. We have worked dili-gently for the past six years to make this new space a reality. The build-ing houses a new dance studio, a demonstration kitchen, state-of-the-art music studio, community garden, outdoor movie theatre and performance space and the new

MESSAGE FROM THE

CHAIR & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

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Weston-Mount Dennis ProTech Me-dia Lab. We are extremely grateful for the support of our many part-ners for their support in realizing this dream.

We have been extremely fortunate for the support we have received by the City of Toronto, Microsoft, Humber College, Ontario Trillium Foundation and so many others in-cluding our local community part-ners! With their support, we will be able to continue to offer a mix of music, dance, technology, culi-nary arts, and performance based programming to more youth and community members, and be-come a vital hub for the commu-nity. We especially want to thank our staff and youth facilitators for

their dedication and commitment to making our programs an ongo-ing success. It is truly with their hard work that we continue to increase the number of youth we serve and the creative programs we offer and we are so very proud of them!The 2013-2014 fiscal year will see us move to and improve our new home, embark on a new strategic plan, and seek out additional and sustainable funding and resources, and we need your help to make that happen. Again, we thank you for your continued support to date, and ask that you continue to support us in our ongoing growth and development as we work to enhance our neighbourhood by engaging youth in community development through the arts!

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Cont’d...

Marlene McKintoshExecutive Director

Laurie-Shawn Borzovoy Chair, Board of Directors

This report covers our September 1, 2012 - August 31, 2013 fiscal year. As of September 2014, we have moved into our new space. A full report

will be provided in our 2013-2014 impact report.

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PROGRAM OVERVIEW AND HIGHLIGHTS

After School Arts Program (ASAP)The ASAP program continues to shape itself to meet the growing needs and demands of our young people. What started off as a program to provide youth with the opportunity to learn about the arts has trans-formed into a solid, far-reaching program where our participants learn how they can manoeuvre through the arts as a viable career choice.

2012-2013 achievements:

Comedy• In its inaugural run, the program hosted 8 participants.• Youth wrote, produced, and headlined a comedy show held July 20, 2013 at Comedy Bar in downtown Toronto.• Participants completed workshops with many of the city’s most notable comedians to learn improv, stand-up and even com plete their own sketch video for the UrbanArts YouTube channel.

Dancer’s Boot Camp• Dancer’s Boot Camp was held in 8 schools and 2 community organizations with 225 participants attending every week.• The program provided youth with the chance to explore and learn about many styles of dance such as reggae, hip hop, azonto and dancehall. • The youth learned and rigorously practiced routines to perform at the annual UrbanArts Dance Showcase which was held at Weston Collegiate Institute in May 2013. Over 250 attended.

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

JEFFREY ‘JSOUL’ EDWARDS

Jeffrey, a student at Weston C.I. first connected with UrbanArts in 2013 when he joined the Beats.Mind.Movement Program. Since then he has grown into a more experi-enced artist, performer and leader.

After starting out in the BMM and Comedy programs, Jeffrey volun-teered with the SummerArts Pro-gram assisting the facilitators and mentoring the younger partici-

pants. His commitment to his vol-unteer role and enthusiasm for Ur-banArts led Jeffrey to where he is now as a co-facilitator of the Road 2 Leadership Program. “UrbanArts changed my life. I started off in the programs where I learned how to write and make music and then volunteering where I learned how to become a leader.”

Jeffrey’s achievements span be-yond UrbanArts with his comedy and musical career. Since com-ing to UrbanArts, he has launched comedy and music pages on You-Tube where he regularly posts vid-eos with a large number of sub-scribers. He most often creates his videos at UrbanArts with the use of the facilities, equipment and help from facilitators “…everything that I’ve done, I had no other way to do without UrbanArts.”

Jeffrey has also had some exciting performance opportunities which he attributes to his connections made through UrbanArts. In 2013 he was co-host of both the Culture-Shock Community Arts Festival and the 106 & York Urban Arts Festival. Most recently, he has secured a spot in a prestigious talent show-case at Danforth Music Hall.

“I’m glad I was given the opportu-nity to turn nothing into something. I literally started from the bottom”

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Road 2 Leadership (R2L)• R2L was comprised of 8 dedicated youth who enhanced their leadership skills through workshops on diversity, anti-oppression, financial literacy, career development, event planning and more. • The program participants successfully organized two of UrbanArts’ most important annual events, WinterExpo and the Dance Show case. This allowed the youth to implement and take ownership over their newly developed skills. • In partnership with Harmony Movement, R2L created a video message addressing issues of oppression and stereotypes that they themselves have faced.

Say Word?!• The Say Word?! Spoken word poetry program engaged 7 youth participants. • The group attended local poetry shows including R.I.S.E. (Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere) Poetry night and performed at local events such as Toronto Arts Foundation Art Impact Study Launch event held at Artists for Artists Foundation.• The program hosted 4 poetry slams/open mic events which included 20 competitors, over 30 open mic poetry and music performances, and featured performances from 10 of the city’s most recognized rising poets.

Sew Couture• This new program consisted of 12 weekly participants.• The group learned the proper use of sewing machines and created their own designs.• Youth attended events and talks to hear industry professionals such as fashion model and motivational speaker Stacey McKenzie.

Snack’N’Chat• A weekly drop-in conversational program that engaged 25 youth with an average of 10 -15 per week.• The group visited and engaged in activities with other community organizations such as the Learning Enrichment Foundation and Ujima House-Young and Potential Fathers. • Participants collaborated with other youth arts groups such as the Parkdale-based Mammalian Diving Reflex to be featured in their web series How to Hook Up and give them a tour of Weston-Mount Dennis. Y-Arts?• Painted 4 murals in schools, engaging over 200 students in the process.• Participants had the opportunity to visit the Art Gallery of Ontario. For many of the students, it was their first time, so they really enjoyed themselves. We also visited Bau-Xi Gallery and Gallery Squared. • The Unison Art Beat program had 15 participants. They enjoyed a visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic art where the participated in a ceramic workshop in 2012.

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

PHALLON ALLENPhallon first came to UrbanArts when she was thirteen for the Sum-merArts program. She remembers the impact of having guest artist facilitators bring canvases in for the

youth to work on. Since then, her interest in visual arts has continued to grow; “UrbanArts has made me more creative.”

In 2012 Phallon joined the It’s A Girl Thing! Young Women’s Leadership Program at Weston C.I. where she is a student. In 2013 she participated in the Photography Program in part-nership with Gallery 44. Her dedica-tion to photography shone through in her work in the darkroom and she remembers the experience of hav-ing her photographs shown at Gal-lery 44 “I felt like a professional. I just thought ‘wow, someday people might want to buy my work.’”

Since the Gallery 44 program, Phal-lon also participated in UrbanArts’ new Digital Photography Program and chose to do her school place-ment at a photography studio.

These experiences have led Phallon to realize that she wants to pursue a career in an artistic field; she has just applied to several Toronto col-leges to study Graphic Design and Marketing. “It [UrbanArts] helped me decide what I want to do in college; something in the arts.”

Beats.Mind.Movement• 45 youth attended the program at our studio every week.• Participants performed at local events such as our own Culture Shock Community Arts Festival, WinterExpo, Dance Showcase and others such as the 106 & York UrbanArts Festival.• Youth received mentorship from industry professionals that have worked with some of Hip-Hop’s biggest names.

Beats.Mind.Movement Mobile• Our BMM mobile music production program was successfully de livered to participants at For Youth Initiative (FYI) and Yorktown Child and Family Centre. • 14 youth were engaged on a weekly basis for 12 sessions at both locations. • The program offered training in FL Studio and Reason and served as a platform for participants to apply to continue their education and attend school to study sound engineering.

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It’s a Girl Thing! Young Women’s Leadership DevelopmentIt’s A Girl Thing! aims to ensure that young women will be better pre-pared to deal with the pressures of both academic and personal life. The program encourages girls to develop a better sense of self and feel more confident in making wise choices to support and enhance academic success.

• IGT engaged 90 young women in 5 schools in Weston-Mount Dennis. • The 4th annual full-day IGT forum was attended by 120 young women from 5 schools from across the west region of Toronto• Celebrating the conclusion of the programming year, IGT participants enjoyed a day that involved a double-decker bus tour, a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum, and a downtown Scavenger Hunt.

Young Men of Honour Leadership DevelopmentThe Young Men of Honour Leadership Development Program is delivered in local schools to at-risk’ boys as a means of engaging them to address social issues, in partnership with Ujima House – Young and Potential Fa-thers. The program uses the arts to enhance literacy skills and charac-ter development and offers leadership and mentoring support to young men in both middle and high school.

• 65 youth participated in the program in 5 schools in 2013 • The program wrapped up with a graduation ceremony attended by 50 youth in May 2013• The program secured 3-year funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation

SummerArtsSummerArts is a six-week summer camp program that engages and teaches young people various art forms including visual arts, theatre, photography, music and dance.

• Over 50 young people participated in our summer camp and the evening dance programming• Campers showcased the skills they developed at our annual talent show. From drumming, to dramatic pieces and dance, our arts camp participants presented very strong artistic pieces. • Hosted the entire 35-member cast of Africa Umoja: The Spirit of Togetherness touring show that tells the moving tale of indigenous South African music, from the earliest rhythms to kwaito. They performed for program participants, shared their message of determination, civic pride, and achievement, and participated in a question-and-answer session. Over 100 youth attended

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MuralArtsEach summer, UrbanArts paints large murals on donated walls across the Weston-Mount Dennis neighbourhood. The program hires a lead artist and a number of youth mentees • The MuralArts team led by Jim Bravo and assisted by Jessica Volpe created a 30-panel mural reflecting the changing demographics of the neighbourhood, showing young children from the early 1900’s to the present in partnership with StreetARToronto, Metrolinx and Weston Frontlines Centre• Hired 9 local youth to complete the mural project• Mural to be installed at the Denison Road Underpass that will link both Jane St. from the east and Weston Road from the west and will not only accommodate the trains above but also vehicular and foot traffic below.

Tutoring Program • In partnership with the Weston Community Cooperative, we hosted a twice-weekly tutoring program for students of all ages. • An average of 18 participants twice per week with over 15 volunteer tutors supporting the program. • Participants had opportunity to participate in UrbanArts arts programs along with tutoring support

EVENTS...

CultureShock• Hosted an three-day CultureShock Festival at both UrbanArts and Weston’s Little Avenue Park • Features included showcase of our MuralArts mural panels and film screenings in partnership with Weston’s Limelight Movie Festival, and spoken word event featuring 2010 World Poetry Slam Champion Ian Keteku. • The main music based event showcased over 15 acts including dancers, singers and spoken word artists, and emceed by comedian Jay Martin

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Winter Expo• Over 100 youth and community members attended our fifth annual Winter Expo event at the Learning Enrichment Foundation Youth Centre. • Event planned and hosted entirely by members of the Road 2 Leadership (R2L) Program. Putting their leadership skills to work, the youth selected artists from the area to perform as well as developing the logistics to ensure success of the event. • The line-up included members of our Beats.Mind.Movement music production program and had 15 acts in total.

It’s a Girl Thing! Young Women’s Leadership Forum• 120 young women attended the annual full-day IGT forum for program participants that was held at Carmine Stefano Community Centre and explored the theme U.G.L.Y. (Uniting Girls; Loving Themselves). • Keynote speaker Ivy Prosper (motivational speaker, model, public speaker, writer, and television reporter) discussed the importance of embracing unique ideas of beauty and cultivating a healthy self-esteem. • Workshops emphasized self-love, identity and exploring beauty.

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Young Men of Honour Leadership Forum• The first annual YMH Leadership Forum was held at Carmine Stefano Community Centre.• With the theme “Boys to Men”, 30 young men participated. • Facilitators from BlackCAP and the Rites of Passage Program at Woodgreen Community Services, DJ Manifest from CHRY and Alyosius Brown from Tone Mason were featured.

Dance Showcase• Over 250 people attended our second annual dance showcase held at Weston Collegiate Institute. The event featured rigorously choreographed routines by participants of our dance groups in various schools.• 85 students showed off their newly acquired skills at this event

Recipe for CommunityRecipe for Community – Weston-Mount Dennis continues to be a true community engagement tool. In the past year, through the initiative, we have:• Delivered First Aid & CPR and Food Handlers’ Certification training to 90 community youth and residents. • Completed the application process for community projects. We have received and reviewed over 20 applications and approved 12 groups that received funds toward their project ideas.• Hosted a Recipe for Community celebration at Weston Towers that showcased projects from community partners and was attended by over 300 community members.• ING Volunteers completed prep work at the Emmet Gardens in the Jane-Eglinton area, building desks and setting up computers for the Martha Eaton Way homework club and building planter boxes for local businesses along Weston Road.

Recipe for Community will culminate in the spring of 2014 with a celebra-tory event and the launch of a cook book featuring recipes from residents and youth from Weston-Mount Dennis.

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ALMOST HOME..AT LONG LAST!

We have made great progress with the development of our new home! Over the past year, we have signed our lease with the City and have taken possession of 5 Bartonville Ave. E. With that, we have been working diligently with our architects and contractors to finalize the renovations to this 1950’s building that will house our programs and services. 5 Barton-ville Ave. E., is located in the neigh-bourhood of Weston-Mt. Dennis. The site will house both UrbanArts and the new Weston-Mount Den-nis ProTech Media Centre. This new arts hub will offer an ideal start to the transformation of this neighbourhood. The centre is geared toward providing programming to engage young people to take positive steps in their lives.

With support from the City of Toronto, the On-tario Trillium Founda-tion, Microsoft , Hum-ber College and partners of the Recipe for Community, Weston-Mount Dennis initiative, 5 Bartonville is really beginning to take shape. The building is be-ing renovated to include a media centre, music studio, dance stu-dio, arts curriculum, community programming and office space. The site will be a vital asset to this community and with the addition of the ProTech Media Centre, will offer another unique opportunity for this priority neighbourhood to gain access to vital programming space.

The Weston-Mount Dennis ProTech Media Centre is one of four such centres across the city and will of-fer UrbanArts the opportunity to effectively combine arts and digi-tal media programming and tech-nology resources for youth.

The Bartonville site will provide an array of programming and initia-tives in the Weston-Mount Dennis area. We look forward to offering new and enhanced services to lo-cal youth and embrace local resi-dents and families. We anticipate new programs such as culinary arts, digital and media arts, community gardening, increased dance pro-grams, performance activities and youth engagement activities.

Our young people con-tinue to be instrumen-

tal in all phases of the planning, de-sign and reno-vations of the centre to date. We have en-gaged with partners and youth to create

what we believe is an innovative,

creative use of the space as we want to

ensure that the building is renovated to sustain program-ming for many years to come as well as valuing and incorporating the vision of youth for the site. We continue to seek support for ad-ditional resources that will be re-quired once we move to the new site. With new programs and ser-vices will come increased staffing and youth activity and presence. We want to ensure we can effec-tively meet the growing demand and are extremely excited at the prospect of moving in to our new home. We look forward to the new opportunities.

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2012-2013

EXECUTIVEChair Laurie-Shawn BorzovoyVice-Chair Lilita TannisTreasurer Dexter BlackwoodExecutive Secretary Kirstyn DeVries

DIRECTORSLouis KizitoColanthony HumphreyDavid CassMuse Kulow

URBANARTS’ STAFF

Executive Director Marlene McKintoshArts Program Manager Lennox CadoreBMM Facilitator Frederick BrobbeyIGT Program Facilitator Andrea “Ify” ChiweteluCommunity Engagement Worker Joan Lillian WilsonAdministrative Support Amanda Mullings/Sonja StockmanResource Developer Intern Nayeon Kim

SUMMER PROGRAM STAFF

MuralArts Project Lead Artists• Jim Bravo • Jessica Volpe

Youth Mural Artist Mentees • Rowena Kizito - Lead Artist Assistant • Carlos Guerva • Brian Bermudez• Frances Potts • Chanelle Augustine • Franklin Borden-Walton• Clarice Gillard• Kentie Grant• Tamu Stevens

SummerArts • Frederick Brobbey, Program Lead

Youth Artists• Ervin Bempong• Devika Sanichar• Richard Keov• Julie Ya

Videographer/Photographer• Seth-Adrian Harris

Volunteer• Jeffery ‘J-Soul’ Edwards

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URBANARTS’ SUPPORTERS2012-2013

PARTNERS

Toronto Community Housing CorporationFrontlines Youth Centre

Toronto Catholic District School BoardToronto District School Board

Learning Enrichment FoundationYork Youth Coalition

Weston BIA/Farmers’ MarketMicrosoft Canada

Yorktown Child and Family CentreMount Dennis Community Association

Toronto Arts Council/Toronto Arts FoundationAction for Neighbourhood Change, Mt. Dennis

Love Music InitiativeToronto Public Health

Renewed Computer TechnologyCity of Toronto (various departments)

Unison Community Health CentreNeighbourhood Action Partnership

Alterna Savings York West Active Living CentreNeighbourhood Arts Network

Artists to Artists FoundationArts EtobicokeLakeshore Arts

Youth Employment ServicesSt. Stephen’s Community House

Friends of the Arts

TAPAScarborough Arts Council

North York ArtsEast End Arts

Recipe for Community, Weston-Mt. DennisMount Dennis Community Association

MetrolinxWeston Towers

Toronto Office of PartnershipsTower Renewal

Canadian Cancer SocietyUjima House – Young & Potential Fathers

BeautfifulCity.caThe Manifesto

Necessary Angels106 and York Urban Arts Festival

ING DirectAccess Community Capital

For Youth Initiative – FYIPanAm Games – Toronto 2015

Toronto Police Services 12 DivisionGallery 44

Mamalian Diving ReflexHumber College

Artscape

SPONSORS & DONORS

St. Stephen’s Community HouseMicrosoft CanadaTechSoup Canada

Toronto Catholic District School BoardToronto District School Board

Recipe for Community

FUNDERS

ANONYMOUS DONOR

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Donate to UrbanArts @ www.CanadaHelps.orgCharitable # 89438 2910 RR0001

designed by something graphic | 416-839-9725

5 Bartonville Avenue East (Weston Rd. & Ray Ave.)Toronto (Mount Dennis) M6M 2B1

&19 John Street (Weston Rd. & Lawrence Ave. W.)

Toronto (Weston) M9N 1J2email: info@urbanartstoronto.org

phone: 416-241-5124fax: 416.241.2124

@UrbanArtsTO

UrbanArtsToronto

@UrbanArtsTO

Community Arts Council

UrbanArtsTO