Art & Craft Programs

Greenest City Craft Group, 2015 - current
Facilitated by Helen Melbourne with the encouragement and staff assistance of Greenest City.

The Greenest City Craft Group is a free, drop-in program that runs during the fall and winter months when the H.O.P.E. Community Garden, the Milky Way Garden and the Dunn Gardens have been put to bed for the winter.

The group provides training, skill sharing, leadership development, skills development, and encourages the improvement of English language skills for newcomers. The primary intention is to build community, and to break through barriers of culture, language, ability and social/economic differences. It is intended as well to keep the Garden community connected throughout the winter. It is a way to reach out to the rest of the neighbourhood who may not have a plot in the community gardens. And more importantly, it is relaxed and fun.

The group is inclusive, and open to all in the community. We work primarily with recycled and donated materials, learning to upcycle, reuse, repair, and otherwise utilize materials that would normally go into the trash.

The program is intended to inspire and encourage creativity and connections in Parkdale and beyond.

---

Refugee Camp – Art & Craft Program 
 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014, 2017

 2017 - This year I finally got to the camp again and ran the arts and craft program with the help of two wonderful artists, Kat Singer and Sophie Schneider(and her son Nell), who I have worked with on the Parkdale Community Arts  Stories of One Block project. I could not have done it without their help. Between us we provided a wide range of arts and craft experience: creative name tags, drawing, painting with food colouring, finger knitting, regular knitting and crochet, making yarn from t-shirts, making key fobs and smartphone bags using felt, embroidery thread, beads and finger-knitting - and of course - play-dough, which was not as popular this year as there were not as many children. We had more projects we could have done if it had rained more - but the outdoors was such an attraction for people cooped up in shelters in the city, (waiting to hear if there asylum applications will be accepted by the Immigration department), that we did not need those projects. For about 50 of the asylum seekers, this was their first experience of the natural world in Canada, and their first experience of this kind of communal holiday, perhaps even for the concept of having a holiday! This work at the camp keeps me grounded and grateful for everything I have in my privileged life here in Canada. And aside from that, I meet so many courageous and joyous people and we all have so much fun, even though it can be exhausting, (although I blame that partly on the fresh air and great food too). Unfortunately I also learned that I could not easily use the swing anymore, and needed the assistance of one of the young men, who helped me and others.

(Note: All of the people in these pictures have given me their consent to post them, or I would not have done so for their safety.)

I developed of art and craft for multi-age groups (2 years to 90 years) of 60-90 people for three days at a summer camp for asylum seekers and new immigrants, under the auspices of the Quaker Refugee Committee. 

The camp itself is organized and run by a very committed group of volunteers who began life as refugees and newcomers in Canada, and who have been running the camp for more than 20 years as a way to pay it forward. The camp is held annually at Camp Nee-Kau-Nis on Georgian Bay. ​​

As much as possible I work with recycled, natural, and donated materials, and I attempt to come up with a really varied program involving a range of activities, skills and simple tools.  

The program offers a number of challenges, as I never know until I arrive at the camp exactly how many people or what age range will be. One year there were more than 18 children under the age of 11, another year there were only two or three.

Refugee Camp Art Work

Participation also varies greatly depending on the weather - if it rains - almost everyone wants to do the crafts, if it is really beautiful, the outdoor activities are far more attractive to people who have been cooped up in the downtown of Toronto or detention centres since they arrived in Canada. For all of the first-timers, this is the first Canadian summer experience, in a multi-cultural and safe community. 

Learning to make play-dough is almost always a hit; as much with the  adults as with the children. One of the most profound moments in my life was when we were mixing the play-dough the first year that I ran this program. The participants were puzzled, and one finally asked, through an interpreter, why we were not making the dough in the kitchen. When I explained that it was for the children to play with, there was a stunned silence. Then the question "that is enough to have fed my whole village for a week, and we are going to play with it?" A visceral moment for me - I have lived all my life in a culture where even the poorest can play with their food. No pictures, words or film that I had seen of drought and starvation could possibly convey the significance in the way this single question did for me.