Somali Youth Association spreads its wings to new location

Long before violence gripped the community in the summer of 2012, the Somali Youth Association of Toronto was working on the ground with young people, offering them alternatives to guns and gangs.

Established in 1992, the non-profit youth centre has been running after-school programs for people 14 to 30 and their families, offering culturally sensitive services, leadership development, settlement, recreation, employment support and referrals as well as an accelerated education program to earn a high school equivalency diploma.

With headquarters in the Duncanwoods Dr. housing complex, the association will be opening a satellite office at United Way Toronto’s Rexdale Community Hub in the coming weeks, spreading its roots into that community.

That’s key to the growth of the youth-led organization, said board member Mowlid Ali, adding the association which serves 1,200 youth will be housed under one roof with agencies working to provide programs easily accessible to the community.

Before the hub, agencies were scattered, he said, and youth didn’t have a place to call their own.

“Being in one building makes its easy for a person to navigate,” said Ali, adding travelling from one health or social service agency to another took a lot of time and wasn’t always easy with public transit.

The Rexdale Community Hub is one of 10 such facilities in Toronto’s priority neighbourhoods.

The Somali Youth Association plans to run its high school diploma and criminal justice programs along with others at the hub. A youth basketball league is already shooting hoops in the gym there.

The Duncanwoods location will continue to operate a wide variety of programs, including housing help, the homework club and neighbourhood beautification, while life skills workshops will continue at Kipling and Thistletown collegiates.

The Rexdale Community Hub on Panorama Court opened in 2012 and has been a success from the outset, said board chair Safia Ahmed.

She describes it as the jewel of the neighbourhood which has a high population of residents under 24.

“To me, it’s a source of pride of ownership and a welcoming place,” Ahmed said. “It’s for the community. . . . All neighbourhoods start with people that are engaged.”

The Rexdale hub welcomes young and old, and is alive with local networking, said director Amra Munawar. “The hub is like a sponge bringing together a lot of Rexdale agencies that were spread out in community,” she said. “United Way has provided a lot of support in every possible way.”

Ali is looking forward to opening the youth association office at the hub.

“A lot of organizations are doing great work,” he said of the hub’s other agencies. “We’re the gateway to youth in that neighbourhood.”

To make a donation, go to unitedwaytoronto.com or call 416-777-2001.