PLEASE NOTE: SWEET CHANGE CHOCOLATE COMPANY WILL BE CLOSED UNTIL APRIL 5TH.
The 'Creating Positive Change Together Program through Community Mobilization’ for young people has been used by the Centre to prepare young people for leadership positions that will advance social justice and good works in our community. To date, the skills training has been provided to University and College graduates and high school students. We all have seen the talents of our young people being wasted as organizations, too often, would only give them menial jobs. Some of our goals are as follows:
With the assistance of the youth participants in the leadership and community mobilization training, the Centre was able to establish a recreation program in marginalized areas of the city. A study had shown that youth in these areas were at greater health risk than youth in other areas of the city. The Centre runs a Saturday morning recreation program at Holy Family School in the west end of the city and on Wednesdays at Queen Elizabeth School in the east end of the city.
The business mentorship training program has proven extremely successful and has assisted five entrepreneurs and recipients of Ontario Works to write business plans, apply for grant funding, and maintain business growth with the assistance of dedicated business professionals who act as mentors. Most of these five businesses continue to operate today in some form or gained employment through the experience, assisting to increase their income and standard of living. An additional four people received entrepreneurship training, which assisted some in gaining employment. The Centre has also worked with the community of Pic Mobert First Nation to implement an evolved form of this project.
Project Entrepreneurship is a training program that addresses social and employment challenges using a combination of training curriculum in life skills, business techniques, employment standards, employer expectations and entrepreneurship. The training provides trainees a solid understanding of what it takes to run a successful business with the goal of using this knowledge and applying it in their employment or when starting their own business.
The participants are trained in retail, wholesale and manufacturing in an interactive environment that promotes the understanding of employer expectations and entrepreneurship using hands-on, lectures, guest speakers and experience-based learning. Participants will see the workplace and business through the eyes of the entrepreneur and the employer.