Serendipity Visual Arts

In our fourth and final workshop of the series, we collaboratively reflected on all of our learnings during the project. Youth shared their collages with each other and presented their unique ideas about community safety in St. James Town. We also had group discussions on future steps and how they can make a positive contribution to existing community safety initiatives and networks in the neighbourhood.

We are so excited to share with you the many creative and thoughtful collages inspired by the project! Stay tuned! :)

Meet our second speaker who led Workshop 3 on Legal Rights and Resources: Maryam Hassan

Maryam is a third-year law student at Osgoode Hall Law School and a long-time resident of St. James Town.
Maryam is passionate about serving her community and advocating for equity-seeking groups. She is interested in pursuing a career in criminal defence to protect the liberty and human rights of marginalized groups from the abuse of police and state powers.

Maryam co-founded Serendipity Visual Arts and uses her interests in the visual arts as a way of bringing positive social change to her community. Her advocacy work has been recognized by the Women’s Law Association of Ontario, Mayor John Tory, the St. James Town Service Providers' Network,
and several other legal and community-based organizations.

Thanks to everyone who attended our third workshop, which was led by JD candidate Maryam Hassan and focused on the legal dimensions of community safety in St. James Town. Maryam shared many helpful legal resources with youth participants and discussed the importance of knowing your rights in police encounters. We also discussed how collage-making can be a way of mobilizing and expressing the possible ways in which we can take action to collectively build a safer neighbourhood.

Meet our Guest Speaker for Workshop 2 on Mental Health: SWETHA SRIKANTHAN!

Swetha believes in a holistic, trauma informed, client centred, narrative and strengths based, anti-oppressive and anti-racist approach to wellbeing. As a Registered Social Worker with over 5+ years of experiences, she worked with marginalized populations, providing holistic healing, mental health, addictions, crisis response, su***de intervention, project and case management, therapy, as well as community development. She strongly believes in holding spaces for holistic healing and ancestral ways of knowing.

Swetha’s therapeutic approach utilizes a diverse range of modalities depending on the client needs (Motivation Interviewing, Solution Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural therapy, Emotion Focused therapy and Narrative Therapy). She has completed her Bachelors of Social Work degree at Ryerson University focusing on the lived experiences and discourses of international trauma among newcomers. She later obtained a Masters of Social Work from the University of Toronto, specializing in children and their families.

In addition, Swetha worked in partnership with children, youth, and their families facing, but not limited to: anger management, anxiety, emotional regulation, depression, sexual violence, child abuse, intergenerational and racial trauma, stress, burnout, “perfectionism,” self esteem, life transition, grief, interpersonal conflict, self harm, and su***de. Her practice is entrenched in building being the author of your own story. To live is not to simply breathe, but to create meanings.

Thank you to our wonderful Guest Speaker Swetha Srikanthan for joining our Workshop 2 on August 10th and sharing her important insights about mental health with us! Youth participants also learned about various mental health resources they can access, envisioned their brave and safe spaces, as well as engaged in mindfulness activities. The mental health workshop later inspired youth’s thoughtful collages on visualizing and making meaning of safety in their community.

We had our first workshop of the Piecing Together Our Peace project this week! Thanks to the youth who joined us - it was a pleasure meeting you all!
We look forward to seeing you next week for our second workshop! :)

We are back virtually with our newest project, starting in the first week of August! :) Email [email protected] to register! Limited spots available!

Thank you to everyone who helped us in making the banner mural at SJT's Spring Gathering 2017! :) We believe the arts play an important role in community growth.

See you tomorrow at the SJT Spring Community Gathering! Come paint with us, celebrate spring in SJT, and share your vision for a growing community 🌸

A special thank you to University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC)'s Intro to Health Humanities class for the opportunity to share about how Serendipity engages the St. James Town community through the visual arts!

Check out SCOPE: the Health Humanities Learning Lab on Twitter for more on Health Humanities at UTSC!

SCOPE HlthHumanities on Twitter “Mehdia Hassan talking to HLTB50 students about her community based initiative called Serendipity Visual Arts! 🎨”