Community Development Framework Working Document

St James Town Toronto

RESIDENT ENGAGEMENT AND

COMMUNITY DEVE LOPMENT

"Community development is a structured

intervention that gives communities
greater control over the conditions that
affect their lives. This does not solve all
the problems faced by a local community,
but it does build up confidence to tackle
such problems as effectively as any local
action can. Community development
works at the level of local groups and
communities rather than with individuals or
families. The range of local groups and
organizations representing communities at
local level constitutes the community
sector. Community development is a skilled
process and part of its approach is the
belief that communities cannot be helped
unless they themselves agree to this
process. Community development has to
look both ways: not only at how the
community is working at the grass roots,
but also at how responsive key institutions

are to the needs of local communities". - A

Statement from the Community
Development Foundation (UK)

RESIDENT ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNITY

DEVELO PMENT
North St. James Town Community
The neighbourhood of North St. James Town in Toronto is the community lies in the
northeast corner of the downtown Toronto area. The term Residents used in this document
refers to the residents living in the neighbourhood covers the area bounded by Sherbourne Street
to the west, Bloor Street to the north, Parliament Street to the east, and Wellesley Street East to
the south. It is the largest high-rise community in Canada. It consists of 19 high-rise buildings
(14 to 32 stories). These massive residential towers were built in the 1960s. Approximately
17,800 people live in the neighbourhoods, making it Canadas most densely populated
community and one of the most thickly populated neighbourhood anywhere in North America.
More than fifty five percentage of the community members are at the age between 24 54 and
living with their family.
Community Development
The term development often carries the assumption of size, expansion or growth.
Community Development means the self-reliance capacity of the community or an increasing
respect for reducing outside dependencies. The term development also depicts the process of
building social infrastructure, such as developing Self-Governed Groups, creating residence
councils or constituting Community Based Organization (CBO).
St. James Town Community Engagement Council (Working Group)
St. James Town Community Engagement Council is a creative and collaborative space for
supporting community-driven initiatives, bringing neighbours together, and develops an action
plan for building positive change in St. James Town. When the residents realized that community
engagement builds social capital, social ties, problem solutions, and support which are associated
with a better community cohesion and well-being, they take the responsibility of creating
alliances and partnerships with existing organizations, builds trust and mechanisms for joint
action. The council is a community-agency collaboration where 12 residents and 3 organizations
are working together to ensure that St. James Town is being recognized as a safe, healthy,

vibrant, prosperous and economically viable place to live, where all residents can fully
participate in the life of the community.
Current Council Members
Residents

Facilitating Organization

1. Shaheen Kauser

1. Anish Alex (The Yonge Street Mission),

2. Chelladurai Yogarajah

2. Diana Mavunduse (Dixon Hall),

3. Tommy Huang

Supporting Staff

4. Rasathi Yogarajah
1. Kurt Aydiner (SJT Community Corner)
5. Chika Griffiths
6. Charles Purdey
7. Amna Shah

2. Laheeb (SJT Community Corner)

3. Nisreen Al-Khatib (SJT Community Corner)

8. Gabilan Sivapatham
9. Madhu Rampal
10. Vacant
11. Vacant
12. Vacant

Action Plan for 2015-2016

Step 1:
Step 2:

Meet two times in a month. Discuss issues, opportunities, priorities and resources.
Identify potential community engagement initiatives and community development

Step 3:

projects which may address some of the existing problems.

Engage more people: Ensure community participation/support for identified

Step 4:

community engagement initiatives

Engage more people through Asset Mapping: - Identify Gift, Talents, Skills,
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Step 5:

Knowledge and Passion of the people. Create a Talent inventory of Peoples.

Identify and organize people who are interested, talented, and knowledgeable. Plan

Step 6:

next level of engagement.

Create Groups/networks based on interest, talent and Knowledge. Create new

Step 7:
Step 8:
Step 9:
Step 10:

leaderships. Economic opportunity plan.

Team Building, mutual trust and respect.
Action plan for each group Project Development Grand Proposal
Identify funding and Project Implementation Sustainability Plan
Evaluation and Learning

1: Meetings
St. James Town Community Engagement Council start meeting on March 2015. The meetings
are held at Community Corner, Room B, on every other Tuesdays. The meetings are structured,
and the members discuss issues, opportunities, priorities and plans. The membership is open until
it fills all the vacant resident positions. The group decided to be strategic in terms of membership
that allow members to have a similar community development perspective. The group is still
working on its structure and procedures.
1.1: Problem Identification
St. James Town Community Engagement Council identified the problems facing by the
community members based on their years of experience working with the local community in
different leadership roles. The group also reviewed various community consultation reports and
studies to get more clarity on what is bothering the residents. Though there are several issues the
council decided to address two major issues.
i.
ii.

Lack of resident engagement

Employment and Income security

2: Potential community engagement initiatives

The group has identifies several potential community engagement initiatives which they
can take up and engage community in a wider level. One of the challenge was how to address
employment and income security while engaging the community. A final list of potential
initiatives yet to be confirmed. The ideas/initiatives came out from the brainstorming sessions are
6

illustrated below. The group decided to engage residents to express their opinion/support on
these ideas, and take more ideas from them.
2.1: List of potential community engagement initiatives

Community Social Action Group

1
3

Fresh food share group

Community Kitchen

1
4

Youth Group

Community Garden

1
5

Womens Group

Community Recycling Program

1
6

Mens group

Community Gym

1
7

Seniors Group

Community Sewing Group

1
8

Community Arts Group

Community Tutoring (K-12)

1
9

Hair & Beauty Group

Seniors Income generation group

2
0

Technology/Computer Edu group

Single Parent Group

2
1

Child Minding group

1
0

Community Safety projects

11 Community Info/News Letter

1
2

Jewelry making group

3: Asset Mapping and Community Survey

The group is in this stage at present. The group may conduct a community wide survey and asset
mapping for

Engagement the community in a large level to inform them about this movement
Develop a collective opinion/support on community engagement initiatives
Mobilize people around the emerged ideas
Identify more engagement initiatives/ideas
Identify Gift, Talents, Skills, Knowledge and Passion of the people.
Create an evidence based best practice in the community engagement efforts
Let the community know there are opportunities to involve based on their talent and skills
Develop a community talent inventory profile
Navigate community interest to the existing/new initiatives

Theory of Change
It is a road map which provides an idea where we are now and where we want to go. This theory
of change is based on the conceptual understanding about how and why this capacity building
model community development strategy will work in SJT.

Engagement

Resident Engagements Stages

Identify existing
leaders
Identify people with
similar interest
One-to-one relations
Need creation

Passive

Participation

Residents drop
some ideas, share
some thoughts or
issues, critique
some programs,
may ask some
questions. Resident
doubtful about the
whole process

Empowerment

Leadership

Discussion on
Community
Engagement
Capacity Building

Engaging more people

Engagem
Level 2Engagement
Level 1
ent Level

Group Formation.

Residents drop
specific ideas, share
their thoughts
around this ideas or
issues, may ask
some questions
about the process

Residents actively
participate in
discussions,
formulate ideas,
raise problems and
suggest solutions

Residents actively
participating to
solve the identified
issues/
formulated ideas,
and suggest
solutions

Engagement Level 4

People create
groups/network
based on their
interest, talent and
skills

Funding

Capacity building.

Community Based
Organization by
residents

Identify new
leadership and some
capacity building
initiatives

Individuals take
initiatives for their
economic growth.

Action.

Opportunity

The group take

some initiatives.
SPN build capacity
and support those
groups

All the partner

agencies
supporting
different initiatives
based on their
capacity and
interest

Each group/network
write projects for
grand
Engagement
councils discuss the
coordination
plans/project
All the
network/group
members create
Community
Development
Council

Community
Development
Council

Leaders will take

initiatives for Small
projects and speak for
the community.
Intentional Capacity
Building initiatives

Developed Capacity
Community led
organization.
Elected leadership.
Sustainability

Conclusion
This movement focuses on socio-economic engagement, new initiatives on social
development, an improved participation in making decisions affecting to the community, and an
improved healthy lives and/or vibrant community. Besides this initiative also intended to gather
information relevant to the existing programs and services and identify key advocacy areas.