Bringing Gaps, Creating Community: Newcomers without Borders launches with peer mentorship
As an already active student in Mississauga with leadership roles on MYAC, Red Cross YAC and as a Student Trustee for the Peel School Board, Kaustav Chaudhuri identified an emerging need and decided to create his own initiative to address it.
“My inspiration behind starting this program was based around the fact that many newcomers are not aware of the level of opportunities that can be found in their community when they first come to Canada,” Kaustav shares. “Now, in secondary school, having these opportunities at your fingertips is crucial in order to stand out on college/university applications — this is where I saw clear disparity between newcomers and the other youth.”
Kaustav explains that often, newcomer students applying to postsecondary institutions “have brilliant marks, but when it comes to extracurricular activities, their profiles are often lacking”. So his organization Newcomers without Borders aims to eliminate this disparity by providing the newcomer students with a clear platform to get out into the community and immerse themselves in leadership and volunteering opportunities that are relevant to their interests and future aspirations.
The main goal of Newcomers without Borders is to pair youth who are new to the community with experienced mentors to help build extracurricular profiles, increasing their level of success in various future endeavours. The youth-led organization welcomes newcomers with open arms into the youth community of Mississauga in a simple, non-intimidating manner, providing a strong sense of community throughout the mentorship program.
Applications are now open for Mentors and Mentees (newcomer youth) as well as two support roles: Outreach Officer and Mentorship Coordinator.
“ACCESS Innovation was instrumental in helping get this idea off of the ground — it was Daniel Francavilla who had helped me decide how condensed this program would be during the period of inception. The entire concept of using a system through which mentees with specific needs would be paired with exclusive mentors was guided by ACCESS.”
Beyond support with Program Development, a visual identity design was developed to represent the program. “ACCESS was also very gracious in designing both my logo and also linking me to another youth-led grassroots group, Cipher, who had helped me design my website,” Kaustav explains.
The Newcomers without Borders website was recently launched at newcomerswb.com. Follow the organization on Twitter and Facebook for progress and announcements of programming dates.
“Overall, it has been an extraordinary experience working with ACCESS on this project so far, and I am very excited to see what the future holds for Newcomers without Borders.”
To apply for support for your own initiative or to learn more about the ACCESS Innovation program, visit accessinnovation.ca.
Phil Anth: Humanitarian apparel company launched by local student
It's not every day that a high school student launches a clothing line as a way to make a positive impact, not profit. The student is Brampton's Youssef Eid, and his company is called Phil Anth — a social enterprise that ACCESS is pleased to be supporting. Fuse Brampton provided Youssef with support and startup funds. ACCESS connected Phil Anth with initial custom orders including Impact Tomorrow and Redwood Studio. Now, Phil Anth will be focusing on growing a unique line of their own.
This shirt supports a student conference and a student social entrepreneur at the same time! http://t.co/F1p8LJ5hNo pic.twitter.com/OULRNoGCZb
— ACCESS innovation (@accesscharity) March 22, 2015
The full inspiration behind Phil Anth
As told by founder Youssef Eid
"A couple years ago I went on vacation with my Dad to Aruba. We thought it'd be great to rent a car and explore the country. The trip started off amazing, the scenery, palm trees, happy tourists. Then we got lost and winded up in a small impoverished village. The images I have tucked away in my memory are so vivid: red dirt roads, broken homes, donkeys as transportation, it was exactly what you would see in poverty commercials for charities. The houses were beaten down, made of rock, without windows, no electricity. I couldn't believe it when I saw families, mothers, and their children living inside these homes. Like most when they see poverty, I tried my best to look away, but no matter where I looked in this village, I saw the same conditions.
The rest of my vacation was fine as I tried my best not to think of what I saw. I didn't want it to ruin my vacation but no matter how hard I tried my mental images kept creeping back. So on our flight home from Aruba, the plane started to shake, it felt like nothing at first. Then it happened, the plane fell through the sky for 10 seconds in severe turbulence. I remember VERY clearly passengers floating in the air, their cellphones, I-Pods...all floating. If you've ever watched an episode of Mayday on Discovery channel, the experience was exactly the same. The man sitting beside me held his wife's hand and yelled "we're going to be okay honey" as I sat in my seat, calm. There wasn't time to panic, my thoughts started racing through my mind. All I've accomplished thus far, and then a mental image of the village popped up and stuck. The plane landed with several injured: sprained necks, broken arms, etc. Paramedics were in the airport ready for when the plane landed. I knew I needed to do something about the poverty I saw. For months I thought: what if that plane were to crash? I've always wanted to create impact, but I had no clue what type and how. But after that day in the back of my mind, I knew what I needed to do. It took a couple of months to get over the experience. Then in the summer I contacted the Brampton Entrepreneur Centre and connected with Lisa Rosetti. We sat down a few times and developed the idea together. That was over 6 months ago. Ever since, I've been developing the idea, the products, and the process. That way it's something I can be proud of, and highly effective in terms of impact.
Most ask me why I chose clothing, the truth is, I didn't choose to sell clothing because I love fashion, I chose it because it's visual, and a way to show art on a moving poster: our bodies. I wanted something people could talk about, and putting a story behind it through youth designs with Eclypse, and our concept gives more reason to. I realized we're not in the business of selling shirts, we're in the business of selling stories. At the end of the day I'm not a fashion designer. I've never cared about what I wear. I see this as the start, it's the model of giving through day to day purchases that I'd like to exploit. Imagine going to the supermarket to purchase groceries at the same price, knowing you're changing the world."
We've eliminated the need for change rooms, brick and mortars, and the nasty 5x markups of this industry. Replacing it...
Posted by Phil Anth Clothing Co. on Saturday, August 8, 2015
Phil Anth is now participating in the City of Brampton's Summer Company program, with funding from the Ontario government.
Learn more about Phil Anth by visiting philanth.ca. Follow on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
Inspiring a Community of Creators: A Collaborative Approach to Teaching Code
Cipher is on a mission to make coding education universal, free and life-changing for youth
Cipher is an innovative youth-led code-oriented community for secondary school students in the Peel Region. The program was created by 4 high schools students and ACCESS is excited to be supporting this innovative concept, after it was presented at Impact Tomorrow's Pitch Competition.
The community the students have created around Cipher will work in tandem to explore, experiment and hack with various programming languages, fostering an engaging community through a season of Cipher Circles and a conference entitled Campfire. An innovation on traditional education, Cipher adopts the element of community from school, but breaks the student-teacher hierarchy, opting for peer-to-peer learning. Consequently, the community offers a more effective model of learning, while maintaining the crucial element of collaboration.
Cipher will introduce enough of a particular language in order for one to hack together a small project, but not delve into mastering it. When learning a programming language, there is exponential growth at first, but it quickly plateaus. Cipher wants to continually hit that stride over a variety of languages.
"Imagine learning to code in a social, inspiring, competitive atmosphere. That's Cipher."
Cipher's primary program is a pilot season that will launch in September. A season is an eight-month term consisting of sessions labeled Cipher Circles. The timeline for each series of Circles will be flexible, accommodating the needs of the community and featuring a different concept/programming language for each series. Cipher Circles will be held at Redwood Marketplace in Brampton.
Cipher's Campfire Conference will be held this August with the aim of discussing community-centric learning with students in the Region of Peel. Speakers will present on topics pertaining to community, education, programming and technology. Cipher promotes learning through an inclusive community; speakers are encouraged to evoke that same atmosphere. We want you to help us create a community of forward-thinkers within the Peel Region. Help us crack the code.
You have the drive, ability and smarts to be a changemaker, we just want to help make it happen.
Learn more about Cipher and sign up for their launch announcement at ProjectCipher.ca.
Impact Tomorrow: Youth Entrepreneurship Conference and Competition
Develop a startup idea, learn from inspiring speakers, and enter to win
The Impact Tomorrow Expo is an Entrepreneurship Conference and Pitch Competition being hosted by youth, for youth on March 28, 2015 at University of Toronto's Mississauga campus.
ACCESS is pleased to be a lead Sponsor of the conference, which has evolved from the first Impact Tomorrow expo in 2013, started by Mississauga high school students who chose to donate proceeds to ACCESS which is now a mentor of the team.
Impact Tomorrow Expo 2015 will feature inspiring speakers and INNOVATE Workshops developed to help youth create their own startup from scratch.
It will also include a #LAUNCH Entrepreneurship Pitch Competition presented by Mississauga City Youth Council, where the top 5 submissions will get to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges for the chance to win cash prizes. Ideas can be submitted here.