Grassroots Youth Collaborative (GYC) is committed to community development and local youth organizing in the City of Toronto. We provide opportunities to our members for networking, capacity building and advocacy.
GYC is a member-driven organization that is governed by our grassroots youth-led core membership. Our membership has expanded to support both emerging and existing to develop community programs that are meaningful and engaging to the community that they are working within:
1. Provide opportunities for networking and collaborative projects;
2. Fill the gap on trainings by organizing what trainings are missing from the sector and ensure its tailored for our members;
3. Direct support and mentorship to give young people the skills to develop;
4. Highlight and showcase the positivity and extraordinary events and programs that young people in Toronto are creating;
5. Advocacy for transformative/systemic change, that affects youth in communities that are marginalized, through research as well as meetings and partnerships with community leaders, funding agencies and policy makers.
1) Capacity Fund
• Redistributes funds to emerging and existing youth-led grassroots groups (they do not have to be core members)
• Ex. Lost Lyrics (emerging) and SOYAT (existing)
2) For-us/by-us (FUBU) Training & Travel
• Training that fills gaps for grassroots youth-led groups, experience, organizational mentorship and support (e.g. Board Training for grassroots youth-led for board members who were all between the ages)
• Ex. GYC’s attendance at CR-10 (10th Annual Critical Resistance Conference/Oakland, CA)
3) Youth Organizing Database/Tools/Mentors
• Currently creating a database of youth organizers around the City
• Updating our website to host more tools for youth organizers and organizations
• Match groups and individuals to mentors to assist them with organizational development, support and sustainability
4) Advocacy
• Research & Advocacy: Conduct Research and provide forums for communities to learn about organizing
• Ex. Pipelines and Foundation, Roots of Youth Violence, From The Roots Up
The Grassroots Youth Collaborative (GYC) was formed in May 2004 to advocate for policies that empower young people to have a voice and contribute to their communities. We are a collective of culturally and racially diverse youth-led organizations many of whom work in underserved, lower-income, at-risk communities where violence, especially youth violence, is regularly in the media spotlight. The programs delivered by our member organizations reach out and engage young people who are typically missed by more mainstream youth programming. Programming typically falls within and overlaps between three main streams including neighboruhood-based, arts and ethno-specific all under the approach of community development.
Currently, the GYC consists of the following groups/organizations including: Manifesto, Lost Lyrics, Gashanti, Beyond The Lyrics, No Manz Land, Youth N’ Charge, Womynation, Eritrean Youth Coalition, Younited, Beatz to Da Streetz, Youth In Power, Stolen From Africa, For Youth Initiative (FYI), Rathburn Area Youth (RAY), Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre, The REMIX Project, Schools Without Borders (SWB), the Somali Youth Association of Toronto (SOYAT) and the Young Diplomats Ethiopian Youth Association.
GYC is currently expanding membership due to and overwhelming growth in the number of grassroots youth-led initiatives. Moving forward we recognize the current context, after three years of increased funding by the government, we need to be more inclusive of groups of young people who are working to enhance the capacity and healthy development of young people in low-income/at-risk communities. Following the year of the gun in 2005, much of the sectors’ funding was devoted to “project funding” for youth-led groups all over the city, however these projects are now coming to an end and many of the engaging and successful programs and spaces will have difficulty being sustained. GYC will work on alternative strategies to ensure that youth organizing in Toronto continues and works to address the inherent gaps and systemic barriers.
GYC is now working towards a re-structuring, which will focus on continued capacity building and networking for GYC’s core members and expansion of core membership, support and development of the growth of emerging youth-led agencies. GYC will focus more on the ability to mobilize young people across the city to address systemic barriers that youth are facing and the inherent gaps in institutions/programs/services.
