We have listened and we now present to you our first charity domino tournament – 6 LOVE!

The night promises to be a fun one with heaps and heaps of domino games and a chance to win over $1500 in prizes. The event will be local but we anticipate attendance from our supporters far and wide.

Refreshments will be West Indian inspired with the right music to set the tone for a good 6 Loving.

Ticket sales start today at $55 per player or $45 for members of a team (max. 5 team members). Tournament capacity is set at 124 players. Ticket sales end 28 March 2012 @ 12 pm. So, I highly recommend you get ‘em as soon as you can!

How to Purchase tickets

To purchase tickets click ‘get ‘em‘. The link will take you to our Canada Helps link.  Search for ‘Touchstone Youth Centre‘ then go to ‘Donate Now’. Fill out the ‘Donation Amount‘ as it matches the type of ticket you are looking for (individual or team).  Then, fill out the ‘Message‘ portion of the form by writing ‘6 LOVE!‘. Continue to the other pages to confirm payment options. Please be sure to complete all forms since this will work as your registration to the tournament.

Alternately, you could contact me directly for payment options (@ Touchstone; visa, interact or cash).

Please note that there will be no ticket purchases at the door.

For more details, please email Anthony Stewart  or call 416-696-6932 ext. 30.

See you there!

Speak It! 

Dreams Under Construction is a project designed to give youth a chance to express their feelings about Toronto through various artistic outlets. The other two components of Dreams Under Construction will be Make It! – a silk-screened t-shirt gallery and auction taking place in March, featuring t-shirts designed by Toronto youth – and Take It! a photo gallery presented in April.

Encompassing spoken word, dub poetry, and a real sense of community, Speak It! was a hit. Esteemed guest artist and Jamaican dub poet Charlie Bobus shared a few of his pieces, then encouraged youth in attendance from Touchstone and the community to do the same. The result was an evening in which laughter was shared – but tears were, too. The majority of our clients have suffered much in their young lives; some were able to express that through spoken word, garnering emotion from the audience and raising awareness about the difficulties faced on a daily basis by youth right here in our community.

Refreshments were graciously donated by King’s Bar & Grill (919 Pape Avenue, East York, Ontario), and the evening concluded with a chance to socialize and discuss some of those difficulties. All in all, Speak It! was an opportunity for people with different backgrounds to come together and speak their minds in a supportive, artistic setting.

Touchstone will be launching its first Art Series called Dreams Under Construction: Speak it, Make it and Take it!

Dreams Under Construction was a vision influenced by the exposed insight of youth when they are given the opportunity to express their dreams for the future. As youth access our service daily, we learn that they all have a dream that is far removed from their current state. Many of these youth express difficulty in accessing the tools needed to bring reality to their dreams. However, they still dream! We believe that the ability to still have a dream despite their current state gives youth a hope that can foster reality – they just need a canvass to start the building process.

Participating youth will express their thoughts and ideas about living in Toronto through the power of spoken word (Speak It!), silk screening (Make It!) and photography (Take It). Each series will host a gallery that will be open to the public. All youth are invited to participate in this showcase of art and talent.

The series will begin with Speak it! in February and continue with Make it! in March 2012. Take it will be held in the middle of April 2012. Please continue to visit our website for updates on this series.,

Speak it! – The first gallery of the three-part series will showcase the spoken word talent of youth across the community. The intent of this event is to celebrate the responsibility of youth within our community and the creative perspective they bring to social change. Youth from all over our community will express their views on issues that affect Toronto through dub poetry and spoken word – open mic included!

The event will be held on February 11, 2012 at 5 pm in the Multipurpose Room at Touchstone (1076 Pape Ave). Admissions free with refreshments available. All youth (in heart, mind and body) are invited to participate in this event!

For more information on Speak it!, please contact Elaine (our Drop In Worker).

As the world of arts unveil the many talents of youth in Toronto, Touchstone presents the opportunity for young talent to express themselves. Whether it be the hard stomping effects of Krump to the clever nuances of Funk, all youth dancers are encouraged to come out and show Toronto what you got!

There is one catch though…you loose your gear if it is fair and square! Each participating group will enter the stage outfitted in their own customized ‘Gear’. This gear will be created through Touchstone’s Dreams-Under-Construction T-shirt Gallery Project where each contesting dance group or individual design their own custom ‘Gear’ through the art of silk screening. To keep this gear, however, they have to claim their stake on the dance floor! So let’s dance!

Doors open for Gear at 6:00pm with performances and showcases starting at 6:30pm. Registration and information about the event can be located at http://www.wix.com/tycevents/gear.

On Thursday September 8th 2011, we had our 6th Annual Fire and Ice Fundraiser!!!! For more Information,  Please Contact us at 416-696-6932 and ask for Fire and Ice or email lkhan@touchstoneyc.org

Street youth are more likely to get sick and even die on the streets. A recent study that examined the mortality rate among homeless youth was carried out in Montreal between 1995 and 2000 and looked at 1,013 young people between the ages of 14 and 25. Originally the study was designed to examine rates of HIV and Hepatitis infection among youth. But the researchers began to realize that some of their subjects were disappearing. They began checking the coroner’s records and discovered an alarming rate of deaths – mostly caused by suicide and drug overdose.

By June 2001, 26 of the 1,013 participants – 22 boys and 4 girls had died, or a mortality rate of .89% per 100 person years.

Note: the total figure is really 29 but three were not included in the above number because they had not been on the street for two years or more.

The homeless youth mortality rate was 11 times higher than the rate of the general population of Quebec.

Street youth pregnancies: A study conducted in 1997-98 by the Hospital for Sick Children and the Shout Clinic among 93 street-involved females found that an alarming number of street children have pregnancies. There were a total of 118 pregnancies among the women. The study found that:

• 59% reported having been or currently were pregnant.
• The average age of first pregnancy was 16.7 years.
• At the time of the first pregnancy, 29% of youth were living on streets, 27% in shelters, and 43% with friends or family.
• 32% of all pregnancies were miscarried, 22% were terminated electively, 34% delivered and 12% were still pregnant.

Street youth women are more likely to get pregnant than women who are not homeless at a rate two to three times greater. The younger someone became homeless and the longer they stayed on the street the greater probability they would become pregnant.

Miscarriages were two to four times higher among street youth than the general population. This was attributed to poor nutrition, increased rates of substance abuse and sexually transmitted disease.

The study concluded that the reasons for higher rates of pregnancy among street youth is connected to socio-economic status and self-esteem: many feel it may bring a dramatic change to a hopeless situation, giving them access to more emotional and financial support, more sense of empowerment by the responsibility of caring for a child, a sense of family where they don’t otherwise have one, and the hope they will be treated with more respect.

Living on the street is no picnic. While it’s true that some youth seek the streets for adventure – and are derisively labelled “weekend warriors” or “twinkies: – and eventually return home, most street youth are there simply because there’s nowhere else to go. And on the street there is the constant threat of violence, exploitation, drugs and illness.

In one 2002 study:

• 45.7% of street youth reported being attacked in the past year, as compared to 6.3% for their non-homeless peers,
• 52.8% reported being threatened with an attack,
• 42% had been sexually assaulted or threatened with sexual assault.

Please check out our Fall 2009 Newsletter!!!

Click on the link below.

web_images/Spring_2009.pdf

Jermaine

Hi, when I first came to Touchstone in the spring of 2001 at the age of 17. I was familiar with Touchstone as my older brother had accessed the services offered several times before. Sad to say my family situation was far from stable, my single mother trying to raise four kids, and a “dead-beat” father who was never around and completely non-participant in my family.

I can say now that I lacked direction and guidance, I bounced between shelters, friends’ houses and the street for over two years. I did some high school courses, but was far from attending regularly, how could I? I had bigger things to worry about, no food, shelter, clothes, no one to talk to, no one to care if I did or did not. I worked odd jobs, mostly under the table, but had difficulty saving money; with little guidance of course I made poor decisions with the little money I had. It not that I am stupid, quite the opposite, I was well-liked and respected by my peers who came to me for aid and advice. I was a victim of circumstance, Not asked to be brought into the world by a non-caring father, a mother who could barely provide for herself, no one to teach me, love me help me. I was on my own.

In the fall of 2003, now approaching 20, I found out that my girlfriend was pregnant. During this transformative period Touchstone was there for me, needless to say with their help and support I “grew up quickly”. But I was determined to break the legacy of my own father, I refused to repeat the history of my family. Touchstone helped me secure full-time work and they found stable housing through their Employment and Housing Programs. I became as I knew that I could become an active and supportive father and husband.

Unfortunately a small blip in my housing situation caused a brief return stay at Touchstone in the winter of 2005, but it also lead to where I am now and to the latest success of my life. I realized that my long-term aspirations were to share my experience and life in an effort to help other homeless youth. Once again, Touchstone was there for me, they help me secure student assistance and scholarships, I was admitted to the Child & Youth Worker program at Centennial College and begin school in the fall of 2005.

Today, I am the proud father of 2 beautiful children, I am a good father and spend as much time as I can with my children, a good husband and provider as I work, save and school myself.

I am grateful to Touchstone and they should be proud to know that they were there for me when no one else seemed to care. Now I hope to help many more homeless children like myself who have been victims and have no choice but to seek comfort in the streets.

Woman on a mission to help

Reality much more complicated than stereotypes on the street, social worker says

RAFAEL BRUSILOW FOR METRO CANADA

November 12, 2008

Click here to view article