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Posts Tagged ‘poverty’

Providing support through our Senior Socialization program

Posted on: February 1st, 2024 by Nellie's No Comments

seniorsprogram-ripleysLaunched in November 2022, the Senior Socialization program at Nellie’s is one of the newest ways that we’re continuing to look outside our shelter walls and be a force for change in our community. The program was born out of a need to provide further support and connection for the seniors living in our community, most of whom we connected with through our food program. Amanda Nobile, our Community Support & Outreach program coordinator who runs the food program, began to notice that many of the older women who were visiting our food program every week were very lonely and isolated — a situation that worsened with the pandemic.

“We noticed that even though the food program doesn’t open until 12:30pm, a lot of them would come by around 10am to just hang out,” says Amanda. “It became a place for them to socialize with each other and make some friends in their community. So we wanted to expand on that because we saw that it was definitely a need for them.”

From there, the Nellie’s team applied to, and ultimately received funding from, a New Horizons for Seniors grant, which aims to promote healthy aging through the development of community supports for seniors. Our goal is to increase both educational and social programming for seniors to reduce social isolation.

The true highlight of the program has been group trips to Toronto attractions, such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Ripley’s Aquarium. “We’ve done quite a few trips now, and they’ve been received so well — the seniors love them!” says Amanda. “I wish I could run them way more often, and every week have somewhere to go, but they’re definitely a lot of work to plan, and it’s hard to get affordable tickets.” We’re incredibly thankful to the ROM, the AGO, and Ripley’s, all of whom have given us either free or heavily discounted tickets.

“I like to pick places where we’re not just socializing and going to have a coffee, but we’re going somewhere that our clients typically wouldn’t be able to afford,” explains Amanda. “A lot of these people have lived in Toronto for their whole lives, and many of them are immigrants who came to Toronto and have lived here for the past 20-30 years, and they’ve never been able to visit these major Toronto attractions because they can’t afford it.”

Amanda explains that typically the group will do a one-hour tour together, and then if they want to stay and explore the rest of the attraction, they can do so on their own or in smaller groups or pairings. “It’s really sweet to see them pair off with someone that they just met, and ask if they want to go to an exhibit together, or go grab a coffee, or travel back to the east end together,” says Amanda. “They start pairing off and making friends, which is the whole point of the program. Seeing that actually work has been really heartwarming.”

The educational part of the program focuses on digital literacy, which originated as group workshops and has now transitioned into private or semi-private tutoring sessions, where senior women can bring their device and get all their questions answered in a supportive environment. “This has been even more impactful than the more broad workshops,” explains Amanda. “We’ve had seniors that love it and keep coming back, and they’re super excited to have this space where they can expand their learning opportunities.”

Another element of the program has been a bi-weekly yoga class, run by an amazing teacher named Kristen who has volunteered her time as an instructor. A core group of approximately 20 participants attend each session, where they focus on breathwork and light stretching in a very mindful practice catered to the seniors’ abilities.

As the Senior Socialization program expands, Amanda plans to still feature special trips, but she’s also hoping to start up a weekly or bi-weekly seniors drop-in, providing the women with somewhere to go on a regular basis to meet people and socialize more often. These drop-in meetings would also allow Nellie’s to meet more of the community’s needs, by bringing in experts or hosting sessions that they specifically request, such as a financial expert during tax season, or running a games day or a movie night.

“The participants are always asking me: ‘what’s the next thing? When can we get together again?’” explains Amanda. “I want to be able to provide them with a space where they can come if they have any issues or just want to meet new friends, and we will do our best to be able to provide that through the drop-in program.”

United Nations says Canada’s Poor are Hungry

Posted on: May 24th, 2012 by Nellie's No Comments

Just prior to Aboriginal Awareness Week, UN special envoy Olivier De Schutter was invited to examine hunger and food access in Canada. After an 11 day mission, De Schutter released his findings on May 16:

“What I’ve seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples.”

His report also described the situation in many of Canada’s aboriginal communities as desperate: “A long history of political and economic marginalization has left many indigenous peoples with considerably lower levels of access to adequate food relative to the general population.”

In response to the report, the Federal Government represented by Minister of Citizenship Jason Kenny blasted the report’s findings and said “…the contributions we make to the UN should be used to help starving people in developing countries. Not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada.”

(image from aptn.ca)

Today, almost 1 in 10 people in Canada live in poverty. Most of them are children who go hungry every day. We see their mothers every week at Nellie’s in long line ups waiting for the food that will provide them hunger relief.

Aboriginal Awareness Week is a time to reflect on the injustices that Aboriginal people have endured since colonization and that continue to this day, including barriers to access food.

For more information on the United Nations report you can view this video from CBC.

The full report is available here.

Poverty Has A Woman’s Face

Posted on: April 12th, 2012 by Nellie's No Comments

1 in 7 women in Canada live in poverty. Women earn just 76% of a man’s wage. More often than not women who are poor are faced with choosing between paying their rent or feeding their children.

Nowhere else is this more evident than at Nellie’s. In 2008, Nellie’s delivered 1,331 meals through our weekly food program –“Supper Surprise”. Last year, that number hit 1,810 – a 26 per cent increase, with an average of 71 families relying on this program for weekly food supplements.

                       

What does Poverty look like for the clients at Nellies? This is what women had to say at W.E.A.V our Women Ending Violence Support Group

  • “Working everyday 2 or even 3 jobs and we don’t make enough to put food on our table every day.”
  • “Sometimes I don’t eat dinner—that way my kids have enough.”
  • “Poverty, struggling to survive, trying to stay alive.”
  • “Homeless, living on the street, trying to find something to eat.”
  • “Depressed, angry, hungry, frustrated, lonely and isolated.”
  • “You can’t get money and you can’t find a job and that’s sad.”

Many factors cause women’s poverty including: lack of access to education, opportunities, childcare and fair income, sex-role stereotypes in paid work, changes in family composition such as divorce, health, violence and abuse, leaving gainful employment to caregive, and greater risk and increased poverty for women who are Aboriginal, non-white, disAbled or queer.

Women as the face of poverty results in children who are poor. Poverty among children is strongly linked to ill-health and poor academic achievement. By keeping women poor, we are also keeping children poor, making them sick, sabotaging their futures, contributing to crime, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty and violence. We need to work together to effect change social changes that will help not just some, but all women and children to succeed.

Daily Bread Toronto launches Fall Food Drive at Nellie’s

Posted on: September 21st, 2011 by Nellie's No Comments

On Wednesday afternoon Nellie’s welcomed the Daily Bread Food Bank to  launch their Fall Food Drive as well as their new report on hunger “Who’s Hungry 2011: Profile of Hunger in the GTA.”  This annual report is based on information collected from food bank clients across the greater Toronto area.

According to “Who’s Hungry 2011”, the average monthly income for food bank clients is $925, with 72% of this going to cover rent and housing costs. This leaves only $5.67/day for food, clothes and other expenses. Last year the Daily Bread had over 1 million client visits, which is an increase of 130,000 from 3 years ago.

(Executive Director Gail Nyberg, and Acting Director of Research Richard Matern at Nellie’s) 

“Sixty-seven per cent of food bank clients are receiving social assistance of some kind. That means the ‘social safety net’ we supposedly have in this province has serious holes in it, and needs a transformation”, says Richard Matern, Acting Director of Research at The Daily Bread.

The Daily Bread Food Bank has set a goal of $400,000 and 400,000 pounds of food for their Fall Drive, which runs until October 14th. Financial donations can be made online here.  Donations of non-perishable food items can be dropped off at any fire hall or Loblaws, Valu-Mart, No Frills, or Real Canadian Superstore.

Nellie’s has been a proud member agency of the Daily Bread Food Bank since 2001.  Every month they provide us with 1080 meals for the women and children at our shelter.  Their support is so important to us as well as over 170 member agencies across the city.

You can find the full press release on The Daily Bread Fall Launch and Who’s Hungry 2011 Report, here.

Countdown to the Provincial Election: What YOU can do!

Posted on: September 13th, 2011 by Nellie's No Comments

The 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction  is calling on all provincial political parties to make poverty reduction a key election issue this fall.

In their recently released statement “A Call to Action on Poverty in Ontario”, they say:

“As the October provincial election approaches, we call on all Ontario political parties to make the reduction and eradication of poverty a key election issue and to clearly outline their commitments and concrete plans to tackle poverty in our province.”

Many of the women and children who come to Nellie’s are not only leaving situations  of abuse, but of poverty and homelessness as well.   The Toronto Community Foundation reported in their 2010 Vital Signs report that “almost one quarter (23.4%) of children in female lone-parents families were living in poverty in 2008.”

As countless social service agencies around the city see their demand for services increase and their financial capacity to provide these services threatened by funding cuts, it is of utmost importance that the government we elect takes a serious and progressive stance on tackling poverty. 

Please check out http://25in5.ca  for more information on how you can get involved.