UNITY Charity's "Hip Hop Away From Violence" program

Vital Stats

Michael P

people helped25000
People Doing It 100

The Problem

I created UNITY to provide positive artistic outlets for youth to express themselves, to help make positive life choices, and become involved in their communities. I believe and have seen through my experiences that sharing your voice through art is a powerful tool for young people to educate themselves and their peers. There is a lot of violence, stereotyping, drug use and bullying in schools across Canada. When young people do not have a positive outlet for their frustration this can lead them to getting involved in the negative behavior patterns and activities. By providing youth with positive self expressions such as break dancing, graffiti art and spoken word poetry, we directly engage youth with their schools and communities. Apathy amongst students is a struggle in many high schools and this program acts as a tool to re-engage the indifferent and provide at-risk youth with opportunities to reach their full potential.

Plan of Action

I developed the Hip-Hop Away From Violence program in my grade eleven entrepreneurship class in 2003. It started as an idea based on my love for leadership, hip hop and helping others in the community. After a few successful years of running this program in it's infancy at my high school Thornlea Secondary, I moved on to University where I started a volunteer chapter called UNITY @ York. In 2006 I decided I wanted to take this concept to the next level so we could impact more youth. At this time I decided to register UNITY as a non-profit organization, build our board of directors and consult lawyers to help us apply for our charitable status. After two years and over 11 revisions we received our charitable status in 2008. At this time we were heavily focused on solidifying our program model so it could spread to more and more youth. My goal is always to make a deeper and wider impact on youth. Anytime we set up our program in a school we want to ensure that it provides ongoing follow up for the youth in our program so they feel the support to continue practicing their positive art forms. We have over 5 current pilot projects that will provide additional follow ups in our schools so we can create a sustainable impact. In 2009, our focus has been on stabilizing our current infrastructure so we can provide continual follow up and consistent support for youth in our program. In the summer of 2008 we applied for over $38,000 from the Laidlaw Foundation and received this funding. We have also raised over $40,000 through individual donations after receiving our charitable status. In order to take our organization to the next level we need continue fund raising so we are able to continue to provide the highest level of quality in all of our youth programs. I think it's important that we get our name out in the media so the public is aware of what youth are doing for youth. Our impact must be seen.