Our Mission

To provide direct services, education, training and research to develop the life and social skills of children, families and adults in St. James Town, and in turn encourage contribution back to the community

About Community Matters Toronto

We serve newcomers in St. James Town in downtown Toronto.

We count more than twenty cultures among our friends and neighbours supporting their energy, their hopes and their desire to help themselves and their families realize their aspirations and in so doing contribute to Canada.

We use a “NEIGHBOURS HELPING NEIGHBOURS” approach creating Community Assistants - familiar and trusted community residents from many cultures trained to help their neighbours.

We encourage small networks of influence driven by residents. We see these as Natural Helping Networks – people already in the community and part of a natural neighbourhood network. There exists significant associations between a person’s social distance and/or connection to others and the impact on their happiness, loneliness and health habits. We encourage support of microenvironments, organically supporting the transmission of healthy behaviours amplifying patterns of positive interactions, increasing neighbours’ capacity to deal with their own and their families health.

We use a combination of training and supervision to develop capable Community Assistants inviting resource people in as needed. We have successfully used professionals to transfer their knowledge and skills to local residents.

Community Assistants now support over 500 newcomer families in the community