Students from George Brown College’s Fundraising program are donating 20% of their proceeds from a cultural event downtown Toronto. The Fundraising Program  team is putting on a event as part of their studies. The event
is called Wanderlust, which means a desire to travel. We are focusing
on 4 main countries, Egypt, India, Ireland, and Columbia.
There will be food, activities, from each country and there will be a
raffle and silent auction.

Purchase tickets in advance of the event by calling our office at 416-929-9314 Ext. 109 and speak to Sonia.

Event Location: The Devil’s Martini, 473 Adelaide Street West (Near King and Portland)

on Monday Feb 13, 2012 from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door and $15 for George Brown students and AFCY Youth Assistants.

“This handbook offers a Vital Idea: Evaluation can be a creative, artful, energizing and inclusive process.” This is the first line of the document so let this be the dangling carrot that prompts you to call for your own complete copy.  We are excited to share more by offering those interested in learning about innovative ways of assessing community-based programs.  The handbook was written by Leah Burns and Julie Frost and was funded by the Toronto Community Foundation through a Vital Idea Award. It was designed as a “living” document intended for artists and people working in the fields of child and youth services and community development to use as a flexible framework from which to explore, experiment and inquire about arts-informed evaluation.

At its core, AFCY believes in community engagement through the arts. We work collaboratively with underserviced Toronto communities, educationally linking school and community-based arts experiences. We believe that engagement in the arts provides opportunities for young people to discover their role as cultural innovators who can shape our collective futures.

Some of the postcard that were created during one of several experiential activities:

Me@Scotiabank Nuit Blanche

Me@Scotiabank Nuit Blanche was one of the three activities Arts for Children and Youth had planned for Nuit Blanche 2011. Me@Scotiabank Nuit Blanche doodle postcard activity invited visitors to visually represent and record themselves and their festival experiences. Blank postcards were distributed for participants to draw, doodle, sketch, write their interpretations of the event. We invited the public to mail their postcard creations to AFCY for a chance to have their postcard image featured on our website.

At Nuit Blanche:

Photos: courtesy of John Tavares

Arts for Children and Youth (AFCY) had designated October 1, 2011 as “Toronto Doodle Day”.  AFCY  handed out postcards on October 1st and 2nd for people to doodle on. The theme for the drawings was “Express Yourself”.

This hands-on art-activity encouraged the public to “creatively play” and express themselves while they engaged in the same kind of collective art-making experience that our program participants enjoy. The public was invited to send in their drawings, to be featured on our website. AFCY will also be showcasing some of the artwork created on our social media channels. Participants are invited to send in a Twitpic (Our Twitter handle is @AFCY2010) with the hashtag #me.

Some of the work created during Culture Days:

Click image to zoom

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche

Exciting News! For every new “Like” on the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche FLUXe Facebook page, Scotiabank will donate $1 (to a maximum of $15,000) to Arts for Children and Youth. Click the “Like” button below to show your support for AFCY!

Be an artist on October 1st from Dusk to Dawn

This is your chance to be an artist! Me@Scotiabank Nuit Blanche is one of the many activities Arts for Children and Youth has planned for Nuit Blanche 2011. Me@Scotiabank Nuit Blanche doodle postcard activity invites visitors to express how they envision themselves during this art festival. We will be handing out blank postcards and will ask participants to doodle on them and post them on either of our social media channels, Facebook or Twitter. A select few will be displayed on TTC monitors on subway platforms for the rest of October 2011.

AFCY is Scotiabank Nuit Blanche’s chosen charity. This means that AFCY will benefit from all proceeds and donations made at Nuit Blanche this year.  Three AFCY activity tents will be set up along Yonge Street: At Wellesley, at Yonge/Dundas Square and at King during the October 1st all-night art event and yes, we do need volunteers for the night. For more volunteering information call us at 416-929-9314 x 109 or email Sonia Briglio: Sonia@afcy.ca.

Shadow Works

Shadow Works, a video-based activity

Visual and digital artists Alina Martiros and Pamella Schuller will be collaborating with AFCY during Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. At AFCY’s Yonge and Wellesley tent, Martiros, will be leading the Shadow Works activity. The tent will be a part of the art-making process as a screen. Inside the tent, participants will experiment with shadows using simple cut-outs to create vignettes as well as patterns that would be visible to the audience and passers by outside the tent.

At least 2 video cameras will document the shadow happenings from outside the tent throughout the night.

Shadow Works

Community Streamers

Community Streamers – this is a mixed media collaborative art activity that integrates fabric arts, the outdoors and collective art making. Dab, doodle, draw or paint images onto fabric streamers, which will be included in artful public installations featuring a myriad of colourful painted ribbon-streamers that are hung as cooperatives to represent of the notion of community.

Community Streamers

Buy the Edible Alphabet Book before Nuit Blanche here.

Please visit this webpage regularly because we will be updating information as it becomes available.

This year, for the first time, we will begin to engage our outreach participants in art activities that will record and communicate the qualities and impact of our projects. This evaluative practice will be used alongside the more traditional methods we already use such as questionnaires. Our aim is to capture the thoughts and reactions that are brought out through creative processes in a community arts project. Conventional forms of evaluation might miss these, as well as the subtleties of their experiences. With this groundbreaking pilot initiative in place, AFCY will be in the forefront of the arts education program sector. We will be the only arts organization in Toronto that will have a formal arts-informed evaluation system to assess arts-based outreach programs.

AFCY is in the process of developing and distributing a manual and an introductory document on how to use this system. It has the potential of becoming the evaluative model for similar organizations across the province and perhaps beyond. It will be a wonderful feeling to be ahead of the pack. Best of all, it will give our participants opportunities to use the skills they learned during our programs to reflect on and measure their AFCY experiences.

The AFCY Youth Advisory Council is a group of very inspiring people who come from across Toronto to provide AFCY with guidance and insights on everything from programming initiatives to marketing and recruiting strategies. How did we find these remarkable youth? Some started as AFCY interns, some have attended our workshops, and others have heard about the program through youth networks and wanted to get involved. All of them have had many years of experience in AFCY’s programs. They are a strong voice for AFCY, and they’re really something!
The YAC has been particularly active this spring. They recently elected Erin Amoah as Chairperson and Idan McAnuff as Vice Chairperson, both brand new positions for the council. They also welcomed a new member, Bright Osei-Agyeman, to the council in March 2011, bringing the total number of members up to nine.
Together the council runs the BIG BAM BOOM: AFCY Youth Arts Festival (BBB) every year. Catch a glimpse of their undeniable style at the third annual festival on Saturday June 4th and Sunday June 5th at the Harbourfront Centre for the Arts. This culminating event celebrates the achievements of AFCY’s 2010-11 program participants. It features a large-scale exhibition of artworks and a Saturday afternoon stage performance that includes hip hop, African drumming, beat box, vocal and music performances. Guest artists include glitching and popping dance crew Moonrunners and DJ Dark Knight. We are set to have Femi Lawson, YouTube sensation, emcee this year’s stage show, adding his own brand of comedy and enthusiasm to the Saturday afternoon performance while introducing each act. This year’s festival is once again headed by BBB President Stephanie Spafford, and council members Erin Amoah, Adrion Charles, Fitzroy Facey, Andrenne Finnikin, Balu Kanagalingam, Jordan Lewis, Idan McAnuff, and Bright Osei-Agyeman each lend their skills to plan, design, document and perform at the event. Hats off to this incredible team! Their spirit and dedication make the BBB AFCY’s most celebrated event of the year.

“Second Stories”
installation, 2010
Viewable from street level, large-scale 2D letters collaboratively installed in 401 Richmond’s second storey windows pose a question that invites viewers to participate in a dialogue between the building’s architecture and the passersby, prompting a mindful and creative exploration within the urban landscape.

On your Nuit Blanche hop, look up at our windows and let your creative mind brighten the night!

Exciting News! For every new “Like” on the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Fluxe page, Scotiabank will donate $1 (to a maximum of $15,000) to Arts for Children and Youth.

Log into Facebook and click the “Like” button below to show your support for AFCY!