Community Foundation for Kingston & Area and RBC Foundation Announce Grant of $15,000 to KEYS Job Centre

Community Foundation for Kingston & Area and RBC Foundation are providing a grant of $15,000 to support “New Horizons: Newcomer Youth Peer Mentoring Group”.

This grant enables the creation of a local, peer-mentoring and peer-support association led by youth who recently arrived as single refugees and will address issues of social isolation, mental health challenges, and cultural adjustment. Kingston continues to welcome young, single refugee that arrive without family.

“We have been receiving 100 refugees per year and will continue to do so for the next five years”, says KEYS Executive Director, Michael Harris.  “Over the past year we have received about 15 single-arrival young adults, from Syria, Somalia, Rwanda, Eritrea and Afghanistan, to name a few, and we are expected to see an increase in this demographic in the near future.”

This project will aim to provide the participants with meaningful community connections throughout the all the stages of settlement in Kingston as well as build the skills of the association’s youth leaders.

“The skills that I will be learning will help me build a bright future. I feel like helping others will also help myself as we share our experiences,” says Valentine, one of the peer youth leaders.

As a part of the RBC Future Launch Community Challenge, grants like this one are being made to youth-led projects in 150 small and medium sized communities across Canada. The goal of the program is to shift the power to young leaders making positive social or environmental change in their communities, while gaining valuable skills and experience.

“We recognize that creating a sense of belonging is important to so many in our community. This project meets this goal beautifully. It builds on the strength of the peer to peer support system, with the addition of a leadership opportunity for the participants. We are honoured to play a role in the bold change that youth are leading across the country through this national initiative with RBC,” says Gayle Barr, Chair of the Board of Directors at the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area.

The RBC Future Launch Community Challenge is made possible thanks to support from the RBC Foundation, and is part of RBC Future Launch, a commitment to empower Canadian youth for the jobs of tomorrow.