Lubna Alli

The Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough has been serving the Kingston-Galloway/Orton Park neighbourhood for 64 years now. It started as the “Scarborough Youth Police Club” in 1956 and has evolved over the years from a boys club to what is now a boys and girls club. They are a member of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada (BGCC) with a vision to support children and youth in East Scarborough “to discover and achieve their dreams and grow up to be healthy, successful and active participants in society” (Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough, 2020). This is further supported by their mandate to be a trusted partner at the forefront of the community to “provide a safe and supportive place where children and youth and families experience new opportunities, overcome barriers, develop positive relationships and build confidence and skills for life” (Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough, 2020). In order to achieve these goals, they have established five core values: inclusion and opportunity, respect and belonging, empowerment, collaboration, and speaking out.  

As part of a mandate to provide service to over 5,000 children and youth in over 19 locations throughout the East Scarborough community, they offer needs-based social services and programs such as licensed child care, early years programs, before and after school programs, camps, sports/recreation and leadership development. In August 2011, they renovated and expanded their main facility based on community consultation and feedback to allow a bright, inspiring, and safe space that is youth and community friendly. 

The funding to support these programs come primarily from donations, sponsorships and community funded grants. Their membership with the United Way Member Agency, as well as a ten-year capital fundraising campaign paired with funding from the City of Scarborough has helped them to build a larger facility to accommodate more programming. As an extension of this, some of the specific services and programs that they offer include a recording studio, partial second floor and a new gym, as well as subsidized early childhood development and educational programming, family resource centres, special needs consultation, innovative drop-in programs, and life skills and crisis intervention for children and youth. The staff that support this program can be defined as small as they are a group of under 50 who are very hands on despite their area of work. Despite this fact, this organization is very well established and is supported by official policies and a Board of Directors that ensure mandates are met. There is a section under their website that clearly attaches the organization’s policies on varying issues including accessibility, anti-bullying, concussion, member code of conduct, parent code of conduct, and a risk management plan. 

Based on my knowledge of the service learning placement to date and from my interactions with the program staff, I am excited to be in a space where an emphasis on personal development was made clear. My placement coordinator Howard was unlike most other managers I’ve had as he took extra care to learn about the work that I do, the background I come from, and the aspirations and passions I have for my future work, all of which he said was important for him to know when assigning work that fit my interests and skill sets. From my placement role I hope to gain three main skills. The first are research skills, namely with regard to local and City of Toronto policies that affect and inform the work that they do with regard to youth programming, community services, and food/housing mandates. This, paired with the ability to gather and analyze demographic and other data will be a core skill that I can take with me in another opportunity moving forward in my career. Second, I hope to further develop these skills by refining my internal external stakeholder engagement and consultation skills, which Howard has highlighted as a potential portfolio with an external consultant. Last, and possibly most important, I hope to learn empathy and altruism from working in a space that, upon first impression and much to my surprise, put me outside of my comfort zone. 

As an extension of this, I bring to the table both classroom and work experience to compliment the required work. In my undergraduate career, I have equipped myself with the qualitative and quantitative knowledge of public policy analysis as it concerns analyzing pressing policy issues, supporting stakeholder interviews, and consultations. This is further complemented by learning to gather, synthesize and analyze information to creating infographics, data visualizations, and other written communication products through my role as Parks Planning Intern with the Town of Whitby. In addition to this, I hope that my lived experience as an immigrant, Muslim, woman of colour from a low socio-economic background helps to inform and add integrity to the work that I do. 

I was initially drawn to The Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough because I felt that I could relate to the neighbourhood problems given that I was raised in Malvern, another neighbourhood that faces very similar problems to the Kingston-Galloway/Orton Park. I moved away from Malvern about 4 years ago, and as such have since been far removed from the socio-economic-political climate of underserved communities like the ones I grew up in. Now, as an academic, I have been hit with a rude awakening that this gap between the communities I research and my lived experiences now have grown apart as I progress up the ladder. I was confused as to why I felt timid in the space upon entering. Why was I almost too ready to draw conclusions about the lives and experiences of the faces I saw without even getting to hear their stories first? And, why did I grapple with the ‘me versus them’ narrative so readily to begin with? And last, I questioned how I fit into a space as an educated, thoughtful, and respectful ally for a space that seemed to host a majority of Black youth? These were all concerns that I battled with upon first meeting the youth and staff and I hope that by the end of the placement I am able to navigate my way through these points. Community work is not supposed to be easy, nor do I want it to be. I want to be challenged in the work that I do, which is why I am happy that this placement is keeping me in check with my unrealized privilege. As mentioned in class, I will leave the often elitist academic-non-academic power dynamic at the door and will instead use the community as my learning point. 

Sources:

“Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough.” Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough, 30 Jan. 2020, esbgc.net/.