Organizations across Muskoka providing free ‘Getting Ahead’ groups for individuals struggling to make ends meet
Community partners dedicated to the reduction of poverty are teaming up again this fall to offer a free program called Getting Ahead in a Just Getting By World.
YWCA Muskoka, North Muskoka Practitioner Clinic, Bracebridge United Church Out of the Cold, The Door Youth Centre and Gravenhurst Women’s Centre are sharing space, staff, volunteers, materials and skills, to give people living on low income or in poverty a fresh way to look at their current situation and find resources they may not have previously considered or realized were available to them.
This is the fifth year the community partners have worked together offered the program to participants in Muskoka communities and funding this year is provided through the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative managed by the District of Muskoka, and part of a larger Muskoka-wide poverty reduction initiative funded the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
This year will see the launch of a new YOUTH Getting Ahead starting in October to run twice weekly until Christmas.
Getting Ahead groups start in Huntsville, Bracebridge and Gravenhurst the week of September 19. The youth
Getting Ahead starts the week of October 23. Participants gather once a week for 15 weeks in an informal atmosphere and examines the impact poverty has on themselves, their families and their communities.
Each session includes a free grocery voucher and lunch.
The aim of Getting Ahead is to provide a safe, agenda-free learning environment. Investigators:
- reflect on and examine their lives
- examine their own experience of poverty as well as explore issues in the community that impact poverty – banking; housing; jobs; transportation
- assess their own resources
- enjoy the power that comes from solving problems and controlling their own lives
- make plans for their own future stories
- offer ideas for building a prosperous community, and
- create a support network to assist them in achieving their goals.
“I am so glad and grateful that I found out about this course. I learned that with the proper support and
resources anything is workable in any circumstance… and a great social gathering!” says a past participant.
YWCA Muskoka champions positive change for women and girls through education, leadership and advocacy. For more information and to register go to www.ywcamuskoka.com or contact Liz Angell (Co-ordinator) at 705-645-9827, email [email protected].
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