Community Knowledge Centre - Toronto Community Foundation

About this organization

Mission

SKETCH is a community arts initiative that exists to foster creativity, self-discovery, and personal empowerment for young people who are street-involved, homeless and otherwise marginalized. We celebrate the resilience of young people and see them as significant contributors to culture with the capacity to co-create and organize social change.

SKETCH provides arts and educational opportunities that integrate job and life-skills development with artistic disciplines to: enhance skills, stimulate imaginations, make personal and social change, and create connections with the broader community.

History of Organization

SKETCH was conceived and developed in 1996 with a core group of street-entrenched young people with theatre artist, Phyllis Novak as project coordinator.

In 1999, SKETCH established a studio on Queen Street West and employed a full-time staff of artists and social workers to conduct community arts activities accessible to this unique population of young people.

In December 2001, SKETCH incorporated as a non-profit organization; on March 7, 2003, SKETCH received its charitable status and built its Board of Directors.

In 2002, SKETCH moved into and renovated a 6000-square-foot fully-equipped warehouse studio on King Street West. 

In 2010 SKETCH engaged over 850 participants in it framework.

In 2011, SKETCH established its new headquarters at 180 Sudbury Street while its new studio space at the Shaw Street Artscape YOUNGplace is under construction.  This new 7500-square-foot facility will offer specific arts disciplines including visual arts and crafts, music recording, woodworking, sculpture, digital media, dance and theatre and several revenue-generating enterprises.  The Capital Campaign Home Is Where The Art Is was launched to finance this move.

Accolades and Accomplishments

SKETCH is recognized locally, provincially and nationally for its unique, capacity focused approach to youth engagement and organizing through the arts. This year SKETCH is a finalist of the GREENTORONTO Awards (winners to be declared April 23, 2010). SKETCH was awarded one of Toronto’s Vital Ideas Awards through the Toronto Community Foundation in 2009 and its Executive Director, Rudy Ruttimann received a Toronto’s Vital People Award in the same year. In 2008, SKETCH was the winner of the Toronto Arts Council Foundation’s Arts for Youth Award at the Mayor’s Lunch event. SKETCH received the Award of Distinction through The Ontario Trillium Foundation's 2005 Great Grants Awards. SKETCH was recognized as “one of the most innovative programs of its' kind in Canada” by the Arts Network for Children and Youth (ANCY) and was added to their list of `Best Practice' organizations in the nation. SKETCH was selected by World Vision Canada as one of its 10 national partners in a program aimed towards reducing child and youth poverty in Canada in 2006 and SKETCH received national recognition with an Eva's Initiatives Award for Innovation (sponsored by CIBC). SKETCH is a member of the National Youth Homelessness Network.

Programs

>Sustainable Living Projects: Healthy Gardens, Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Communities
>Open Studio
>Playing with Equity

The programs operate in a drop-in, artists’ cooperative style, and through specific project-driven activities.

SKETCH has developed an award-winning progressive learning framework called Inspiration Tag! that sees young people determining their own paths of skill and leadership development to become fully engaged co-creators of community through culture.

SKETCH's framework includes:

Open Studio drop in (self-directed skill building),

Arts workshop series with established artists,

SKETCH Connections to Education support and Income Generation through exhibition and sales

Community Artists Leadership program (training and job opportunities for youth ready for leadership)

Strategic programs to increase equity and inclusion in all our activities to achieve our goals in anti-racism and gender equity

And several special initiatives like the Sustainable Living Project: Healthy Gardens, Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Communities (featured below) and CUE artists grants (youth organized arts grants to youth).

SKETCH also works to mentor and support emerging artists who have come through its activities to effect change in the Greater Toronto Area. These collaborative partners include Womynation, creating arts activities for young women of colour; and Connect To Youth, creating awareness and advocacy for youth through theatre.

SKETCH maintains a strong partnership network to create community supports to marginalized youth in social service, health, environment, employment and education.

Sustainable Living Projects: Healthy Gardens, Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Communities

The project integrates food security, community kitchen and nutrition practices with gardening, environmental stewardship and arts and culture – all as part of creating opportunities for personal and social change. The project brings SKETCH and its participants together with neighbours and partners of all ages, in the communal responsibilities of neighbourhood renewal and urban food production. The 3 community gardens at HOPE in Parkdale and Fort York, each in partnership with Evergreen, will create food and herbs to then be used in our Community Kitchen and in the studios. We will also host 12 workshops led by youth throughout the year, and partner with, Evergreen at the Brickworks, creating an artful sculpture for the sites, as well as partner with Spoonful of Honey Story telling circles and help support great events like Spirit Matters a festival for intergenerational art making and story telling using multi media at OISE. We will also host quite a few potlucks and community dinners, working as a collective to prepare meals made from food we grow, enjoyed together in the gardens. We also hope to create a garden video, make music in the gardens build a raised bed and learn about how to care for the soil we've been growing in for the past 3 years.

Program Impact

Over the years the Community Gardens have involved the participations of over 6 community partners, over 260 young people as leaders and many more neighbourhood members. The Community Kitchen has involved well over 100 participants with facilitators to create over 8000 meals even just within the last year. Our environmental initiatives peek a lot of interest and we are being invited to round tables to discuss the impact of this kind of community health sustainable living focus on poverty reduction and homelessness. This project brings so many members together in creating new urban ecological space where we can all contribute meaningfully to health regardless of our circumstances, or perhaps even because of our circumstances.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“Of the 10 Toronto neighbourhoods with the highest diabetes rates, 70% lack access to parks, schoolyards and recreation centres; 70% have low access to healthy resources and 100% are low income.” (Toronto’s Vital Signs, 2009) The Sustainable Living Projects integrate food security, community kitchen and nutrition practices with gardening, environmental stewardship and arts and culture – all as part of creating opportunities for personal and social change. We see that as young people who are poor are involved and employed in food production and neighbourhood building that improvements can be made to their personal sense of belonging and health as well as to that of the overall community.

Participant Vignette

A young man who is a member of Toronto’s newcomer community has been involved in the creation of our garden initiatives and he created a fantastic children’s video in 2009 where he was able to share from his unique perspective some of the beauty of gardening in bringing people together. That video has been a great opportunity to bring him and other youth from SKETCH in teaching roles with children and community members.

Open Studio

OPEN STUDIO is the entry point for all people who connect with SKETCH. It takes place in our King West cross discipline studio space of 6000 square feet twice per week. Open studio is the self-directed skill building space where over 50 participants per day exchange ideas and skills, create and consume meals together, care for the studio areas and incubate projects together. It is a gathering space where people become introduced to all the benefits of art making.

Program Impact

It is a first contact point for youth to connect with primary needs community partners for food and housing needs as well as mental health and employment supports. It is a beautiful space where people sew, draw, paint, screen print, sculpt, craft, make music and dance together. It is a place where youth can be industrious, express themselves and discover their creative potential. As mentioned over 50 youth per day on average can meet with the coordination team of SKETCH made up of artists and social workers. 10-12 participants and community volunteers make it happen daily with the SKETCH team.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“Toronto scores third among its North American peers (ahead of Seattle, Boston and Chicago and just behind Vancouver and Los Angeles) on the Bohemian Index – a measure of whether a region has more or fewer professional artistically creative people than the average region. The ranking is linked to Toronto’s relative openness and tolerance, which in turn is associated with the Region’s ability to flourish in an age that demands high creativity and innovation.” (Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009) SKETCH’s Open Studio provides marginalized youth increased access to art making and a chance to connect with established artists and culture activists. Art making can enhance skill building and cultural capacity that can be transferred to other learning domains. The cooperative and communal nature of Open Studio means that marginalized youth are involved in building a space that is determined by them and their capacity to organize together. It increases their sense of belonging and helps them find new directions toward community life, education and employment.

Participant Vignette

A young woman who came to Open Studio for one whole year did not speak. She had suffered much adversity in her life and lived in an alleyway nearby. Accessing the food, seeing the fun and hearing the laughter that art making brings at SKETCH, she stayed close to the craft tables. Gradually she began to be involved in creating lip balms an salves as well as zines about all kinds of things that she thought about. Two years later this young person who experienced a great deal of isolation and despair is now housed, has exhibited great leadership and has won awards in the broader community for her civic engagement. Being a part of something like Open Studio has enhanced her sense of self and community to strengthen her engagement more broadly. When she comes to SKETCH she knows she belongs to an alternative creative community that welcomes her experiences and sees the importance of her contributions.

Playing with Equity

Playing with Equity is a proposed project that is growing out of our participants desire to be more involved in creating grass roots strategies to combat racism and inequality at SKETCH and in the community. Through workshops and activities with artists and consultants SKETCH participants would explore the connections between racism, gender discrimination and even violence with poverty and homelessness. They would continue to host Talking Circles to host community conversations about important issues. They would create strategies and interact with policy development understanding what gender based and anti-racism analytical frameworks can mean to community and organizational development. This project would create greater training for everyone at SKETCH in anti-oppression training and transformative justice processes.

Program Impact

Throughout 2009 over 50 participants were involved in our monthly Talking Circles. That number is growing as is the broader community involvement as mentors and partners and allies to young people as they work to create a better, inclusive and more cooperative city for marginalized youth. Young people would have a safe space to hold difficult conversations. They would be involved in problem solving systemic issues and overcoming barriers to being involved in processes that effect them.

Toronto's Vital Signs® indicator(s) addressed by Program

“Most Torontonians feel they belong to their local community, but discrimination erodes a sense of being Canadian… Canadian-born minorities are less likely to feel a sense of belonging” (Toronto’s Vital Signs®, 2009) So many young people who are either newcomers to Toronto or children of newcomers have found themselves isolated and without opportunities. Creating safe space and activities that reduce barriers and acknowledge leadership in newcomer youth who have struggled with life long oppression, can only improve our city’s overall capacity, integration and living conditions for all its constituents.

Participant Vignette

Two young people who have long felt the damaging effects of systemic racism and for whom the daily stress of living with racialization, finally came to an escalated moment in the studio. They exchanged harmful and violent words and actions towards each other. It was painful for the whole community. Gradually through a transformative peace building process they agreed to rebuild safety for themselves, for each other and the whole community. Everyone learned so much about how to use the arts to build bridges between one another and to recognize our mutual responsibilities to overcome the harmful effects of systemic racism. Their processes was at a high point when through hip hop in performance they were united and confirmed their commitment to making change.