In This Issue
Profile: Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming Inc.
CED Tools - Online Leadership Toolkit
National News
Comprehensive policies to combat poverty across Canada, by province
Tamarack’s Measuring Community Change Tele-Learning Series
United Steelworks Form Collaboration with Mondragon
Obama Requests $50M to Identify and Expand Effective, Innovative Non-Profits
Healthy Communities: By Design
Job Postings
Profile: Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming Inc.
Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming Inc. (SCYAP) is a not-for-profit organization that has developed a community-supported arts and culture-based approach to address the social, educational and economic needs of youth. Darrell Lechman, founder and executive director of SCYAP, has taken an approach to personal development and empowerment of at-risk youth in which art is the focal point. Art, as a means of expression, encompasses a diverse range of human experiences and creations that help build a positive self-image and facilitate a transition from the street back into the community. Helping over 2500 youth since their inception in 2001, SCYAP has witnessed 50% of past participants find immediate employment and an additional 40% return to school.
It is the belief of SCYPE that there comes a time in the life of most youth “at-risk” that a change or redirection can happen. It is at this time that the influences within their environment can, and quite frequently will, affect the direction in which the individual will choose. “It is more than providing our youth with an influential environment that will furnish an opportunity for positive direction,” says Lechman, “it is getting them there and having them want to be there.”
On December 4th SCYAP’s Art Gallery will host the 9th Annual Urban Canvas Project Grand Opening and Media Event. The event will be an opportunity for youth participants to gain experience in public speaking and a chance for them to converse with the general public and answer questions relating to their art and their participation in the project.
December also brings another project to SCYAP and its Sign & Design and Corporate Gifts division. They will be designing the “Player of the Game” awards for the upcoming 2010 World Junior Hockey Championships to be held in January 2010. SCYAP’s Sign & Design and Corporate Gifts division was created to develop a social enterprise that would provide employment opportunities and further skill development.
For more information on SCYAP, please visit www.scyapinc.org
CED Tools - Online Leadership Toolkit
Building Community Vitality: A Leadership Toolkit is a newly launched online resource developed specifically for those playing a catalytic role to support communities tackling broad issues of concern. Designed by Community Foundations of Canada to support community leaders in “connecting the dots” between various issues that impact community life using the experience and expertise of Canada’s 160 community foundations.
The toolkit includes:
- What is community leadership? A primer on the concept and what it means to organizations and communities
- Tools to get you started. Three well-known leadership tools, adapted for the Canadian context
- Resources you can use. A comprehensive listing of current and historical resources on community leadership
- Community vitality in action. Leadership stories from CFC members and the opportunity to submit your own
- Measuring your progress. Evaluation tools to help your organization determine whether you’re making a difference.
Use the tool at Community Foundations of Canada
National News
Comprehensive policies to combat poverty across Canada, by province
During the first six months of 2009, three Canadian provinces announced anti-poverty policies. In light of these recent developments, and in continuity with other work developed on anti-poverty strategies across Canada, the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy has conducted a scan of comprehensive laws and strategies. This scan seeks to provide a descriptive overview of existing comprehensive anti-poverty policies, and to guide the reader towards these policy documents and analyses of them.
Tamarack’s Measuring Community Change Tele-Learning Series
This two-part series explores research developed by Vibrant Communities on various metrics used to monitor four aspects of community change: Less Poverty in Communities; More Vibrant Communities; More Collaboration in Communities; and More Community Engagement.
Tune into Part II of the series, December 17th at 12:00 noon EST
United Steelworks Form Collaboration with Mondragon
The United Steelworks and Mondragon Internacional announced a framework agreement for collaboration in establishing Mondragon cooperatives in the manufacturing sector within the United States and Canada. The two will work to establish manufacturing cooperatives that adapt collective bargaining principles to the Mondragon worker ownership model of “one worker, one vote”.
Obama Requests $50M to Identify and Expand Effective, Innovative Non-Profits
"Many solutions to our nation’s most challenging social problems are being generated outside of Washington; the Social Innovation Fund will identify what is working in communities across the country, provide growth capital for these programs, and improve the use of data and evaluation to raise the bar on what programs the government funds."
Read the complete press release
Healthy Communities: By Design
Recently, public health officials have said that, “the greatest predictor of a person’s health status is their postal code.” This statement is a good illustration of the complex inter-relationship between individual health, community well-being and the design of our built environment.