PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Each year AFCY offers almost 200 outreach programs to children and youth in Toronto’s priority neighbourhoods. To date, we’ve provided over 40,000 young people from culturally diverse, low-income areas in Toronto with high-quality, innovative arts experiences in visual arts, dance, drama, music, dub poetry, video/film-making, and photography.
Rather than having the participants travel to our offices, AFCY brings programs directly into the communities via collaborative partnerships with local service agencies, the education system and cultural industries. Today, we reach approximately 8,000 children and youth every year through 97 diverse venues including inner-city schools, community centres, shelters, churches, libraries, hospitals and Toronto Community Housing buildings.
AFCY’s programs for children and youth fall into 2 categories:
- Programs in Schools (daytime & after-school)
- Programs in Community Organizations (after-school & summer)
AFCY also offers Professional Development programs for those who work with children and youth.
Professional Development
AFCY makes its programming sustainable by not only serving young people, but also the educators/community workers who work with them, in the form of Professional Development (PD) workshops. AFCY offers teachers and principals at each school site, and community workers at each community site, an arts education PD workshop. This is just one of the ways in which AFCY’s programming uses highly collaborative and inclusive measures. These in-service workshops are designed to lead participants through a series of hands-on experiences, which include art appreciation, studio techniques and lesson planning in all the arts disciplines. Effective strategies for integrating the arts into core curriculum areas will also be discussed and demonstrated.
To book a professional development workshop in your school or community organization a small fee is required. For more information about these workshops please contact our office at (416) 929-9314 or email us at info@afcy.ca.
Communities We Work In
Weston-Mount Dennis
Jamestown
Jane-Finch
Lawrence Heights
Toronto Central
Regent Park
Warden Woods-Victoria Village
Malvern
Steeles/L’Amoreaux
AFCY works intensively with each community and the surrounding area where our programs take place. Over time, programs become entrenched throughout the community and are seen as an essential part of the lives of all the children and youth who live there. Learn more about our communities here.
Each program involves a series of workshops delivered by a professional artist, as well as a Youth Arts Assistant who provide guidance and mentorship to the young people. AFCY employs more than 50 professional artists and 20 Youth Arts Assistants. Our generous roster of volunteers help facilitate these programs.
Community Sharing
Many of AFCY’s programs fall under our largest program stream: Community Sharing. AFCY’s Community Sharing Projects (CSP) directly increase community capacity building. In these programs, young people create works of art or performances that they donate to a social service within their area, such as a neighbouring school, seniors’ home, public library, daycare, hospital or Children’s Aid centre. Performances and exhibitions also take place in local, non-traditional venues (e.g. a shopping mall) in order to reach and engage the widest demographic within their neighbourhood. Each of AFCY’s programs are designed to help the participants reflect their cultural heritage, bringing to light the interconnectedness of diversity within their school and neighbourhood. The Community Sharing Program is also tailored to the needs of children and youth with special needs.
Our programs place the arts in the limelight as a way of encouraging success, innovation and creativity in young people. By sharing the creative work from our programs, AFCY showcases and celebrates youth culture and the arts within a public forum.
Artistic Skills Development
In our programs young people are introduced to new artistic techniques, as well as encouraged to practice those they already know. Participants learn how to use new art materials, and to create art as individuals or as part of a larger team. Each arts workshop presents opportunities for the young artists to apply their creativity and explore artistic techniques.
Arts Educators Institute Workshops
AFCY has designed and implemented an institute, which offers Toronto’s professional artists, youth arts assistants and developing artists professional development workshops which include topics such as pedagogical strategies and methods, environmental arts education, health and safety and group management techniques. For more information about these workshops please contact our office at (416) 929-9314 or email us at info@afcy.ca.
