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Organizational Partners
For the last two years Banyan Tree has worked to gain capacity to engage at-risk youth; established a youth-run board and advisory committee made of experts from our community; and planned and coordinated funding for the initial pilot project that will take youth and build a pilot strawbale dwelling.
We are forming collaborative partnerships among already existing service providers to affect positive change. This includes our main incubator sponsor Low Income Families Together with Foodshare Toronto as our charitable partner; generous funding support from the Laidlaw Foundation; and the new addition of The Institute Without Boundaries within School of Design at George Brown College.
Low Income Families Together
LIFT commits to strengthen the foundation of our community, to enable members to develop, share and increase resources, embrace diversity and create enduring, people centered initiatives. With a strong history of affordable housing advocacy as well as design and building, LIFT is incubating Banyan Tree to plant to the seeds of an effective youth led organization.
FoodShare Toronto Foodshare Toronto is our charitable partner in which we are able to grant tax receipts for donations. As well our summer project involves our youth volunteering with Foodshare.
FoodShare was founded in 1985 by then Mayor of Toronto, Art Eggleton, and others concerned about the growth of hunger and food banks that had taken place in the wake of the recession of the early 1980’s. FoodShare’s original mandate was to co-ordinate emergency food services, and to collect and distribute food. The Hunger Hotline was established as a volunteer-run referral service for people seeking these services in their neighborhood. Another key part of FoodShare’s mandate was to advocate for policies that would ensure adequate employment, and the income necessary to enable all people to meet their basic needs.
Laidlaw Foundation The Laidlaw Foundation’s Youth Engagement Program enabled Banyan Tree to take an idea and make it real. With generous funding support for our initial process on how to engage at-risk and homeless youth in fair equitable ways to learn about sustainable and affordable housing.
Institute without Boundaries The Institute without Boundaries was founded in 2003 by George Brown College and Bruce Mau Design. In the inaugural project, Massive Change, six students worked in the Bruce Mau Design studio researching, writing, designing an exhibition, a website, a radio show and a book, that explored and sparked a discourse on the future of global design.
This is one of our most exciting partnerships in that we will be working with the students of the world house project to build demonstration dwellings that aim to provide affordable housing. Truly an institution that wants to break down the boundaries by engaging at-risk youth to work to help design and build the world house. |
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