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June • 2022
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Community-Led Support for Toronto’s Seniors As our world shifts and adapts to life after a pandemic, so too do the ways we provide care for vulnerable seniors. For over 30 years, the LA CENTRE for Active Seniors has been developing and delivering socially engaging programs that promote health and independence for people aged 55 and over in Toronto’s West End community. LA CENTRE invites seniors to get active, stay healthy, learn something new, and to stay connected. Through its services, LA CENTRE fosters a culture of respect, inclusion, and diversity to ensure that all seniors are welcome to engage and contribute to their community. In March 2020, LA CENTRE suspended in-person programming and turned its focus to a more pressing matter for seniors—food security. Although the majority of the population was at risk of contracting the virus, senior were some of the most vulnerable parties; they needed support that would allow them to stay safe in their homes
© IMAGES COURTESY OF LA CENTRE
while still getting the supplies they needed, like meals and pantry bags. Through strong community partnerships with agencies like Second Harvest, LA CENTRE has succeeded in delivering over 50,000 meals and pantry bags to seniors in Toronto’s West End community over the course of the pandemic. LA CENTRE continues to prepare and deliver 500+ pantry bags and prepared meals each week and credits this incredible accomplishment to
the team of dedicated volunteers who worked tirelessly to provide essential food straight to seniors’ doors each week! Even more impressive is that the majority of LA CENTRE’s volunteers are seniors themselves, providing a space for peer-led programming and opportunities to contribute and have autonomy in their communities actively. While food delivery has been LA CENTRE’s primary focus during the pandemic, they are now looking to resume their
regular programming. After two years of physical distancing and lockdowns, the CENTRE knows first-hand the importance of meaningful social connections for a person’s quality of life. The pandemic has made it clear that seniors are vulnerable in more ways than just their health. Isolation is very difficult, and after so much time spent away from our loved ones and community members, we can all see how important socialization is for quality of life.
For their members, LA CENTRE is a place where connections are formed, friends are made, and individuals can contribute and be vital members of their community. Turning a corner from COVID-relief, LA CENTRE and its members are excited for the return to in-person programming and to interact with each other face-to-face. Members have shared that they are most excited for the beloved Day-Trip activities to return this summer. LA CENTRE hosts annual sight-seeing trips to places across Ontario, like Niagara Falls, Toronto, and more. LA CENTRE’s team is amazed and humbled that their funders have remained committed to supporting Toronto’s seniors and funding programs like the senior centre. With your help, they can continue to provide more than just health support for the West End’s senior population. Join our community today by visiting lacentreforseniors.ca
How Santee Smith Is Pushing the Boundaries of Contemporary Indigenous Performance VANESSA GRANT
An award-winning artist, dancer, and educator from the Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River, Santee Smith has been dancing since she was three. Growing up in an artistic family, her relatives supported her passion early on and enrolled her in formal dance training. She fondly recalls her grandmother saying watching her dance was “like medicine.” This early experience of her dance affecting others initiated her passion for performing. As a multidisciplinary artist and artistic director of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, her work combines embodied storytelling, design, and Indigenous creativity and process while addressing the complex realities facing Indigenous peoples in Canada today. Her earlier works portrayed traditional Indigenous stories and have
evolved to sensitively speak about complex topics, from decolonization to the silencing of Indigenous women’s voices. In many mainstream narratives, there’s still the stereotypical idea that the words “Indigenous” and “dance” mean powwows and drums. By carving out space for Indigenous audiences to witness themselves, Smith tackles these enduring stereotypes about Indigenous art and identity head-on with daring and powerful performances. “When we come on stage and do a show, it often looks nothing like people’s preconceived notions of what a traditional Indigenous dance looks like and the audience is sort of caught off guard—in a good way,” she explains in a recent interview with TO Live. “Kaha:wi Dance Theatre and collaborators are breaking down those Hollywood stereotypes and opening up and expanding what the range of Indigenous expression can be.”
As an artist and an intergenerational survivor, she understands the weight this kind of work carries. “When we’re speaking with survivors of residential schools who share their stories, it becomes a real passion, a responsibility to share those stories and share those truths because we’ve been entrusted with them.” But even when dealing with such heavy material, Smith’s work actively focuses on bringing light to dark places. “I aim to have a through-line of hope and positivity because there’s been a lot of trauma, and we want to process that and move through it,” she says. “Audiences seeing and having visceral experiences through these stories is a way of processing, and ultimately I’m hoping it’s a way of healing and moving forward with empathy and understanding.” What matters for Smith is that Indigenous peoples get
© SANTEE SMITH
the chance to tell their own stories and be sovereign in the way they share, express, and embody them. “After creating a body of work that showed our stories, it then became more about sharing our truths and looking at and investigating some of these things that have impinged our society as Indigenous
people in a negative way. But through the work I am showing the resilience, the continuance, the power, the beauty that remains, and is being revitalized.” One of Smith’s newest works shows this beauty and revitalization. Titled Kakwitè:ne nikahá:wi: A Call and Response to Spring, the project is a tribute to the spring cycle that features eight unique performances by Torontobased artists using dance, fashion, music, and spoken word curated and directed by Smith. The performances were captured on film and then animated by AVA Animation & Visual Arts and projected outdoors on the west wall of Meridian Hall last March. The film is now available online on tolive.com. With the film premiering not just during spring but also at a time of social conflict and upheaval, Smith hopes that people see the work as a chance to listen, reflect, transition, and transform for the better. ADVERTORIAL
How the Youth of Today Are Forging a Stronger Tomorrow Sometimes, out of darkness can come light, even though it may take some time to shine through. More than two decades ago, a young Indigenous woman took her life, shocking her community of Wiikwemikong on Manitoulin Island. A question arose from this tragedy: what do youth need to thrive? Cynthia Bell-Clayton, another young person in the community at the time, had some answers. Shaking and nervous, she said, “create a Youth Council to hear our voices—don’t tokenize us. These 8-4 or 9-5 hours don’t work, because we are busy in school. Also, as social workers, you need to create a relationship where we can share our vulnerabilities with you.” Unfortunately, her words fell on deaf ears, as her community members were not keen to implement her suggestions. Many years later, she found herself in Toronto, a single parent with three of her own children and in a position where she could help advocate with the youth that found themselves with the same desire for change. With youth by her side, she sent out an application. She and the youth created ENAGB,
legally known as Eshkiniigjik Naandwechigegamig—A place for healing our youth, Aabiish Gaa Binjibaaying—Where did we come from? The first of its kind, this Toronto Indigenous youth agency was formed to provide cultural support, employment, life skills, holistic wellness, and recreational opportunities to Indigenous youth ages 12-29. Creating an agency like ENAGB was far from easy, but Bell-Clayton didn’t let up; youth approached her, asking her to continue to support them, even when it meant working as an unpaid volunteer Executive Director. She became an advocate for young people— inspiring and leading them to speak up for what they believe in, even when others called it radical. Throughout every step of ENAGB, Bell-Clayton mobilized youth to stand up for themselves and honour their concerns, just as she had envisioned as a youth. ENAGB blends two crucial missions: creating a space where Indigenous youth can address and heal from intergenerational traumas and allowing Indigenous history and values to be brought
into the future. As the first-ever youth-for-youth agency, ENAGB supports young people ages 12-29 and families with children 0-6, addressing intergenerational traumas and the social determinants that Indigenous peoples face today. Now, ENAGB operates out of four locations across Toronto, each providing culturally sensitive programming, ceremonial grounds for outdoor learning and life skills, a roster of knowledgeable case managers, and of course, a youth council with its own board. The youth council is at the heart of everything that the agency does—so much so that ENAGB has a bylaw in place stating that a youth council will always be there to ensure that every decision made will be for the young people served. “Nobody can come along and dismantle the youth council. They will learn that it will dismantle the entire agency if they try,” shared Bell-Clayton. “It’s history in the making. Eighty-five percent of our employees are youth. As parents, adults, elders, youth, and children, we all have something to contribute to our community.
© COURTESY OF ENAGB
This is what humility looks like.” She noted that youth remain concerned with ensuring that there are programs to support the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual well-being of ENAGB members. With the council at the helm, ENAGB has created programs addressing mental health, addictions, trauma counselling, and cultural connection, and is working to address services like addiction treatment centres, transitional housing, and shelters.
Every ENAGB program supports the belief that true healing starts from within—something that Bell-Clayton also believes in. “This is part of the truth and reconciliation that needs to happen in ourselves, our families, and our communities. ENAGB is doing what it can to support our healing journey.” Learn more and support youth-led programming at www.enagb-iya.ca
