Etobicoke to welcome pop-up family centre
Black community along Dixon Rd. will benefit from mobile space
A whole new concept of community space may soon begin “popping up” in the Dixon Rd. community, thanks to a new pilot project spearheaded by two north Etobicoke-based nonprofits.
Delta Family Resource Centre and the Somali Women and Children’s Support Network have secured $125,000 in funding through the Ministry of Children and Youth Services to bring a new pop-up family and parenting centre to life at a yetto-be-determined location in the highly populous, yet “underserved” community along Dixon Rd. between Kipling and Islington Aves.
“Community space to run our programs is always hard to find, so we wanted to look at some alternatives,” said Delta’s executive director, Kemi Jacobs, who commissioned a September 2017 feasibility study to investigate how pop-up infrastructure might pose a solution to the lack of affordable space available to community organizations in Toronto’s disadvantaged inner suburbs.
“Through that, we saw what Market 707 had done for Scadding Court using shipping containers, so we thought that was something that could be used here, too — not just for commercial uses, but for community space, as well.”
Using the success of Market 707 — which consists of a collection of colourful shipping containers repurposed to serve as miniature shops and food booths — as its inspiration, Jacobs said the proposed new Kujistahi Centre will transform two shipping containers into a 640-square-foot, pop-up community space from which to run its programming.
“We’ve seen the plans, there’s going to be a retractable wall so that you can have one big space or two smaller spaces, there’s going to be bathrooms and a kitchenette, and the whole front is going to be glass — it looks really nice,” Jacobs said of plans for the proposed centre, which was contracted out to Giant Containers of Toronto for off-site construction.
According to Andrew Lockwood, Giant’s sales director, the new Kujistahi Centre has just gone into production at the company’s Port Lands headquarters.
The centre, which will consist of two adjoined shipping containers, should be ready to deliver within the next three or so months — or whenever the centre’s new site is chosen.
Attributing the rise in popularity of such “pop-up” container architecture to globalization and the disparity between North America’s import/export markets, Lockwood said Giant has made a market for itself by scooping up shipping containers that are otherwise “just sitting there doing absolutely nothing here at their destination terminals.”
“We take those units, re-engineer them and breathe new life into them, while also providing much-needed solutions to industrial, commercial and residential markets,” he said.
That ease of mobility should serve Delta and SWCSN well, he added, noting that, if needed, the proposed new Kujistahi Centre could serve a number of different functions in a number of different locations in the high-needs areas the two organizations serve.
“We go wherever the need is, so they can invest in this initial pilot project — which is the one 640 square foot space for a family and parenting centre — but could also use it in the future for, say, a daycare in another area.
“Then it could be taken up again, put somewhere else and used as a women’s centre in another area,” he explained.
“It’s a multi-use building that can satisfy many, many needs, and that’s why (Delta and the Somali women’s network) are going after it. It’s adaptable to their needs.”
Funded by the Ministry of Children and Youth Service’s Ontario Black Youth Action Plan, Jacobs said the Kujistahi (which means “respect” in Swahili) Centre was greenlit in order to deliver a “culturally focused, centre-based” model to provide Black parenting programs and other relevant family programs and services to the Dixon community.
“The focus is the Black community and looking at parenting programs, but also looking at enhancing pride and identity in culture — knowing your culture and all the achievements of Africans both here and in the diaspora,” she said.
The question mark that remains, however, is where Kujistahi Centre will be located once its off-site construction is completed.
“We just need a partner who will make a firm commitment to a location in the Dixon area so that this dream can become a reality,” said Jacobs said of the ongoing search for a location for the pop-up, which she hopes to have in place and operational by spring. Farhia Warsame, SWCSN’s executive director, listed Dixon Park as her top choice of sites — located, as it is, smack dab in the middle of six highrise condos filled with “over 10,000 families” in need of nearby programming.
“Dixon Park has a lot of condos around it that house a lot of large families of newcomers, and right now there is no space for children or programs in the neighbourhood,” she said, noting that organizers have just recently entered into preliminary talks with Toronto officials about the possibility of locating the Kujistahi Centre on the city-owned parkland.
“If we could put the pop-up in the park, this program would be really perfect. We want that park to serve multiple uses — that’s the vision.”
For youth advocates like SWCSN volunteers Ismhel Yusuf and Nimco Ali, the Kujistahi Centre’s potential location in the park would represent a good starting point to making that dream a reality.
“I feel like (the Kujistahi Centre) would be a very good opportunity for this community because we’ve never had anything of the sort here,” said Yusuf, a 21-year-old Ryerson student and long-time resident who said he’d like to see Dixon Park outfitted with a new turf soccer field, basketball and tennis courts, rejuvenated playground equipment and plenty of programs to make use of such amenities.
“We really have hope in this space, and we feel that if we built a better park, this community can actually get better, too.”