Coping with COVID in St. James Town part 5
St. James Town Storeys
In this episode, grassroots groups, community agencies, and volunteers in and near St. James Town, Toronto, respond to the needs of people facing challenges in shopping for groceries during the pandemic.
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Coping with COVID in St. James Town part 4
St. James Town Storeys
Three guests from the neighbourhood of St. James Town, Toronto, and the broader community talk about how they are collaborating to get delicious and nutritious meals to St. James Town seniors and others in need of this support. Seniors who normally meet up regularly are also keeping connected through a weekly group online and video and telephone chat.
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Coping with COVID in St. James Town part 3:
St. James Town Storeys
An extraordinary woman with an extensive social network in her community helps to channel the care and compassion that St. James Town residents have for each other during the pandemic.
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Coping with COVID in St. James Town Part 2
St. James Town Storeys
St. James Town Community Corner, popularly known as The Corner, has devised innovative ways to continue providing crucial services to the community during the pandemic. These services, which draw upon the skills of resident volunteers, as well as Community Corner staff, address practical needs of residents while maintaining a caring connection between them.
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Coping with COVID in St. James Town part 1
St. James Town Storeys
We look at the challenges of physical distancing in a high-rise apartment building in St. James Town, Toronto, as well as residents’ experience with food shopping, employment, and income loss. We also look at early stages of residents’ collaboration to deal with the pandemic.
info_outlineIn this week’s episode, we speak with Amal Kanafani, who settled in St. James Town as a Syrian refugee in 2013. In 2015, she created this non-profit organization called the Auntie Amal Community Centre, which works to better the lives of community members. It has been recognized by both federal and city government for its work.
This Toronto Star article describes the powerful impact that Amal’s non-profit organization has in the life of one St. James Town resident, just in time for Christmas.
In this lovely video made in August 2019, a young woman talks about how she benefitted from the Auntie Amal Community Centre, and about how she volunteers with the Centre. In our introduction to this week’s episode, we mention that the Auntie Amal Community Centre supplies furniture to newcomers, but it serves and benefits others as well.
In our chat, Amal talked about an initiative she is involved in to make non-medical masks that many people have begun to use during the pandemic to protect those around them. In this video Amal describes the initiative and invites viewers to support by donating any amount of money they feel that they can.
The Auntie Amal Community Centre welcomes donations. You can contact her at: [email protected] or 647-853-8833
Food insecurity and food banks are a topic in this Episode. Information about the food bank that we mentioned is available here, and it is made possible through a collaboration by The New Common, St. James Town Community Corner, and Our Lady of Lourdes Church.
In the interview we asked Amal whether the neighbours she knows have been able to benefit from government programs such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). Information about the CERB and other government programs of income support during the pandemic can be found here in the website of Councillor Kristen Wong-Tam. When we spoke to Amal in mid-April, she observed that not everyone was aware of such programs because some do not have internet at home.
Lastly, Amal talked about the difficulties faced by recently arrived newcomers. She described the very difficult situation of a woman and her children who arrived in Toronto around the time that the COVID-19 pandemic was declared. Challenges for newcomers to Canada during the pandemic are the focus of this CBC news article. Though it focuses on British Colombia, many of the same issues likely apply here in Ontario as well.
CBC News. 2020. “’Everything is So Hard for Us: Newcomers Find Arrival in Canada Complicated by COVID-19”. CBC 15 April.https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-settlement-services-newcomers-covid19-1.5531283
Our podcast website: https://stjamestownstoreys.com
Our email address: [email protected]