The Quest for an Inclusive City - Metropolis BC

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Wellness Centre, founded in 1997, started on a volunteer basis. Its mandate is to offer counseling for
those affected by war and trauma. (This emerged as a result of research done at Mt. Sinai hospital, the
Ethno-Racial Seniors Project.) There is a coordinator who is a medical doctor, and an outreach
worker (who, in 2002, was found to be only funded for 3.5 hours a week). ‘The seniors and the
middle-aged group who have spent most of their lifetime back home, they need a little bit of support
and community support and neighbors who can speak their own language so that psychologically the
healing is there’ (Org2).
The South Asian Women’s Centre, founded in the early 1980s, while not a specifically Tamil
organization, says that 65% of their clients are Tamil, and so too is the coordinator. As a settlement
organization, its mandate is helping people to ‘adapt to the process of living in another environment’
(Org1). Their office is in St. Jamestown but they also have a storefront in Scarborough. They help
people with a variety of everyday challenges, from how to do the shopping to getting around on
public transport, to accessing social services. They also address domestic violence; corporal
punishment and issues around the rights of children; and have support groups for women.
A more recent community initiative was the forming of the Canadian Tamil Youth
Development Centre (CanTYD), in 1998. ‘The community took the initiative of forming the
organization, funding the organization, and putting manpower and the resources that is required to run
an organization, to deal with the issues the community was facing. There was not actually a lot of
assistance in the beginning from anybody else’ (Org3). Like all the other organizations, CanTYD
began on a shoestring, with volunteer workers, but did eventually receive support from the City’s
Community Development Officer for the region, who helped the new organization with their first
funding proposal. This entirely youth-run organization has now been successful in getting three grants
from the City. The first, from the Community Services Grant program, provided funds for school
outreach programs and for setting up drop-in centers in St. Jamestown and Scarborough. A second
grant, from the former Access and Equity Division (now the office of Diversity Management and
Community Engagement), enabled CanTYD to do a cultural sensitivity training workshop with
Emergency Medical Services professionals, and with teachers. They had earlier run such a workshop
for police from the 41st and 42nd divisions.
‘I think high-level police administration is not making, taking the initiative to do
some of these things. Unfortunately we have to take that step and kind of start to say
that we want to do this with your police groups. And they were receptive. At least
they let us do. But those kind of things need to start to happen’ (Org3).
The third grant was Breaking the Cycle of Violence, and was for the purpose of addressing
gangs and gang violence. According to its Executive Director, CanTYD’s strength continues to be the