TakingITGlobal’s Top 20 in 2020
On behalf of the entire team at TakingITGlobal, we thank you for your collaboration and support of our work. It has been a challenging year in the midst of a global pandemic, and we are so grateful to all of our partners and supporters who have been on this journey with us. To close the year, we are excited to share, reflect and celebrate the Top 20 programs, projects, events and achievements of 2020:
1. TakingITGlobal Awards
We have been highlighted this year for our programs supporting youth and communities, including: the Canadian Psychological Association’s Humanitarian of the Year Award, Future of Good’s Canada’s Top 100 Recovery Projects, and Rainy River District School Board’s Community Partner of the Year.
2. Connected North Sessions & Expansion
During the 2019–2020 school year, we delivered 1,432 sessions to 65 schools across the Connected North network. Going into the 2020–2021 school year, we are proudly serving 100 schools across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Quebec.
3. #RisingYouth Milestones
In 2020, over 2,100 #RisingYouth grants were distributed to empower youth to lead community-based projects tackling important issues in their communities. More than 80% of the grant’s recipients are from under-represented populations.
We are incredibly thankful to over 100 partner organizations across every Province and Territory in Canada that play a fundamental role in supporting youth and raising awareness about the #RisingYouth program. This year, nearly 25% of applications were the result of partner referrals, a process made easier as we launched the partner hub, another online platform designed for our organizational partners to access resources and work together in a more accessible network. #RisingYouth is made possible by funding from the Government of Canada as part of Canada Service Corps.
4. Connected North@Home & Connected North@Home Summer Camp
Connected North@Home was launched on March 23rd 2020 to offer students a variety of continued opportunities to connect live to museums, zoos, artists, and storytellers from home. Connected North@Home completed 362 live sessions serving 10,358 student and family interactions across the country and in Connected North partner communities. This initiative was vital in supplementing learning opportunities while schools transitioned to online and asynchronous learning models. Building on the success of Connected North@Home, Connected North Adventures@Home was launched to provide fun, educational sessions throughout July and August as an alternative to canceled summer camp programs. From July 7th to August 26th, Connected North Adventures @Home completed 52 live sessions serving 1,295 student and family interactions.
5. #RisingYouth COVID-19 Response
During the onset of COVID-19, our priority was to ensure the security and well-being of the youth applying for our grants, their teams and the people taking part in their projects. Collectively, our team has created an array of COVID-19 safety resources like Community CareComics, the result of a collaboration between the artist The Littlest Inuksuk and our INDIGINorth team. INDIGINorth COVID-19 resources centered Northern lifestyles, featuring traditional and modern aspects of modern life.
Through 2020, we have been inspired every single day to witness how Canadian youth rose up to face the challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak. Care packages, distribution of PPE equipment, support to frontline workers and well-being are only a few of the many hundreds of project ideas brought forward by young Canadians around the country. Youth from all backgrounds and cultures, each with their very own story, but also united in their efforts, to help out their communities in an unprecedented time.
6. Indigenous Language Card Decks and Books
In our continued efforts to support Indigenous language revitalization, we worked collaboratively on four projects from across the country. We supported three children’s books: Twelve Months of Fun on Haida Gwaii with Mattie and Jojo (bilingual Haida-English), Ehdaro: Big Point A Day in the Life of a Four Year Old Dene Boy (bilingual Dene Zhatie-English), and Imaa Baawitigong: Under The Bridge (bilingual Ojibwe-English). We also supported a language card deck: Halq’eméylem Animal Card Deck in collaboration with Ovila Mailhot, Leq’á:mel First Nation and the Halq’eméylem Language Group.
7. Future Pathways: Fireside Chats & Navigators
As a COVID-19 response to our Future Pathways program, we created two programs to support youth. Future Pathways: Fireside Chats, supported by RBC Foundation, is a video series featuring over 120 Indigenous Role Models from a variety of careers speaking about their journeys, providing hope for the future, talking about how they handle uncertainty in their lives and careers, and how they balance and maintain well-being. These videos are hosted on the Future Pathways website, but will also be kept as a resource for classrooms to use in the future. These videos are also being created into blogs written and illustrated by Indigenous artists.
Further, the Connected North Future Pathways Navigator website was created to be the ultimate tool for youth across the North to access support for their transition to post-secondary. Tips, tools, resources and video testimonials have been carefully curated as a result of focus groups and outreach by Connected North’s vast network of Indigenous Role Models with the aim of offering easily navigable and highly practical advice from one youth to another.
8. Digital Inclusion Grants
In 2020, we directed more than $1 million in resources to support Digital Inclusion for Indigenous youth and students living in remote communities. We’re distributing laptops and tablets pre-loaded with hundreds of hours of digital skills training, educational experiences, and role model interviews to First Nations, Métis and Inuit youth we serve across our programs. Access to sufficient bandwidth continues to be a huge challenge in many remote communities, and these efforts are one way we hope to equip over 500 young people with the resources needed to support their learning and that of their family members. Thank you to the Government of Canada’s Supports for Student Learning Program and the Samuel Family Foundation for making these grants possible!
9. Samuel Connected North Youth Leadership Fund
The Samuel Connected North Youth Leadership Fund provided grants for 58 Indigenous youth, ages 15–35, throughout 2020. There were 11 grants for travel opportunities, 26 grants for community building projects, 3 grants for gathering events, and 18 grants that involved leadership training and skills building.
10. Indigenous Post-Secondary Research with Samuel Centre for Global Connectedness
We worked with Samuel Social Connectedness Fellow, Emma Greenfield, to document the barriers and best practices within post-secondary institutions to create more inclusive environments for Indigenous students. “Supporting Indigenous Students in Post-Secondary Education: Thriving from Application to Graduation” identifies these barriers by analyzing the policies, practices, and resources of post-secondary institutions across Canada. It also explores the already existing supports that allow Indigenous students to thrive in college and university.
11. Create to Learn@Home
The Create to Learn initiative works with schools to build digital media production skills and creative confidence, connecting students to Indigenous media makers as trainer-mentors and providing digital literacy equipment to schools. In partnership with ImagineNATIVE, TakingITGlobal has launched Create to Learn@Home. This new initiative is hiring First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists and media makers to develop instructional videos on a variety of software tools and creative processes. Students are able to access this content across our social media platforms to follow along at their own pace to build their own creative skills.
12. Code to Learn@Home
Code to Learn offers free resources to Canadian students and teachers to help them learn coding, robotics, computational thinking, and 21st century skills. LYNX coding software is available at no cost to engage youth across Canada. TakingITGlobal works with educators and other community members to co-design curriculum activities & Coding Challenges — including the popular micro:bits! TakingITGlobal has launched Code to Learn@Home to continue to serve students. In partnership with LCSI, Cisco, Fair Chance Learning, and with support from the Government of Canada’s CanCode Initiative, they are offering coding and computational thinking learning experiences for students of all ages with daily live webinars and recordings posted to their various social media platforms.
13. TakingITGlobal Professional Development & Learning Sessions
Along with our COVID-19 response and support for our team, we have also ensured that we are growing as citizens and members of society. We have held weekly professional development for our staff to have knowledge on many topics including anti-racism training, gender diversity, active listening, storytelling, disability inclusion, and more.
14. Global Encounters Sessions
In 2020, the Centre for Global Education hosted over 4500 participants from Kindergarten to Grade 12, in over 60 Global Encounters & 6 National/ Global Dialogues. From SDGs to Climate Change, World Mental Health Day to World Food Day, and elementary programming that looked at topics from Bats, to Bees, to Belugas. We offered sessions in English and French for children and youth to engage in deep, project-based learning. Additionally, our virtual classrooms and global gallery hosted collaborative workspaces for asynchronous learning from students in over 45 nations, across the GLobal North and Global South including: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Spain, Taiwan, Trinidad, Turkey, USA.
15. EDC Djibouti
Throughout 2020, TakingITGlobal worked collaboratively with The Education Development Centre (EDC) and Djibouti’s Agence Nationale De L’emploi de la Formation de l’Insertion Professionnelle (ANEFIP) to build a digital job matching platform. This digital system will enable improved employment outcomes and a more competitive hiring landscape in the country. The 2020 year saw the completion of core functionalities of the platform, employer and job seeker testing phases of development. Additional localization and customization including the implementation of new features including job seeker employment cards and integration with external hiring platforms were also undertaken as we move towards handoff of the platform. By the end of the year there were 4160 Djiboutian job seekers utilizing the platform.
16. Adobe Creativity Grants
2020 brought a closer to our Adobe Creativity Grants program. Over the past two years, we have supported more than 240 creative youth organizations from 43 countries. These organizations directly reach 57,000 young creatives and are working to ensure equitable access to creative education.
While the Adobe Creativity Grants program won’t be continuing, we’re appreciative of Adobe’s partnership for the last 13-years in supporting the growth of this network of creative youth organizations. Our team is grateful to have formed deep meaningful partnerships with community organization leaders that are paving the way for a more equitable creative industry and empowering the next generation of young artists. As we close this door and start on a new journey, we are hopeful we will find ways to continue to grow and sustain our efforts in the creative arts industry!
17. Community Films and Exploring Creativity: A Virtual Summit
This year, in partnership with Adobe, we hosted our very first virtual film summit to amplify youth-produced films and create space for continued collaborative learning among young filmmakers. This event featured 6 youth-produced films on social topics that are important to them and impacts their communities. The event took place over three days, in which 35 young filmmakers from Canada, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the USA virtually connected to take part in professional development sessions on Using Mobile Devices for Photography & Film, Q&A with an Indigenous Filmmaker, Digital Storytelling, Drones, and Careers in Filmmaking.
18. Black Lives Matter: Transatlantic Conversations & Empowering Young People of Colour: Organisational Toolkit
In response to the death of George Floyd and renewed recognition that racism is still prevalent in every facet of our society, we supported the Fully Focused Youth Team to connect young people from other countries to convene and share their experiences as a young Black person and barriers that impact their daily lives. This connection resulted in the initiation of the Black Lives Matter: Transatlantic Conversation, where 10 young people, from Canada, the USA, and the UK, participated in a three hours long LIVE conversation on their experiences as a young Black person in their communities and their experience with racism. The topics and issues discussed resulted in a self-evaluation toolkit to be utilized by community leaders and organizations to review and reflect upon organizational practices and incorporate a framework for accountability into their best practices moving forward.
19. Embracing Virtual Learning: Toolkit for Developing Engaging & Innovative Digital Media Virtual Programs
Our community partners from the Creativity Grants network reimagined their in-person media programming to be delivered virtually, which provided a sense of stability and community to young creatives around the globe!
To inspire and encourage the growth of this expanding virtual community of online lessons, we have created a toolkit that aims to support educators and organizations alike with the navigation and the transition from in-person to virtual program delivery. The Embracing Virtual Learning: Toolkit for Developing Engaging & Innovative Digital Media Virtual Programs resource book provides tools, tips, and recommendations on developing and delivering online creative curriculums from 25 creative youth organizations from around the globe.
20. What Does Well-Being Look Like & Creativity in Quarantine Global Gallery Contest
The COVID-19 pandemic brought many uncertainties into our day to day lives. To navigate these unknowns, many of us are using creativity as a tool for self expression and well-being. TakingITGlobal hosted two Global Gallery contests inviting creatives from around the globe to share with us their interpretation of what well-being looks like to them and how they have stayed creative while quarantining in our homes. 209 media pieces were submitted to these Global Gallery contests, showcasing how people have been utilizing creativity for expression and well-being throughout this year.
Thank you for all you do in support of our work. We look forward to continuing our collaboration in 2021 and beyond!
Regards,
Jennifer Corriero and Michael Furdyk
Co-Founders, TakingITGlobal