Region gives $4M to 41 grassroots groups

Racialized and other equity-seeking organizations top priority for funding

Mona Loffelmann began helping people in her community from her basement eight years ago.

Now, the African Family Revival Organization has an office at The Family Centre on Hansen Avenue in Kitchener, and offers programming to empower girls and seniors, as well as offer mental-health strategies and cultural enrichment programs. The organization is among 41 local groups that have received funding from the Region of Waterloo. The “upstream” funding initiative by the region, which began last year, prioritizes grassroots groups that have historically been excluded from funding.

The recipients include Indigenous groups, African, Caribbean and Black organizations, newcomers, LGTBQ organizations, those with disabilities, and other racialized and marginalized groups.

“The funding is extremely helpful,” said Loffelmann, whose group received $125,000. Some of the money will be used to help newcomer parents learn about the school system to understand report cards, parent-teacher interviews and how to advocate for their children in the school system.

Much of the programming for the African revival group is held at the Mill-Courtland Community Centre and the Victoria Hills Community Centre, Loffelmann said.

The upstream fund is part of a community safety and wellbeing plan to help create a more equitable Waterloo Region. About $4.1 million was distributed to 41 groups.

A committee made of community leaders and residents reviewed more than 100 applications before

allocating the grants, said Fauzia Baig, the region’s director of equity, diversity and inclusion.

Upstream funding helps organizations strengthen work they are already doing in their communities and shifts power back to the groups, Baig said.

“Most of these organizations are already doing this work and so they’re already meeting the needs of their community. What is missing is wraparound support and capacity building,” Baig said.

“How do we foster self-determined communities where they can make decisions based on what’s best for them because they know their communities,” she said.

Regional chair Karen Redman said many of the organizations involved in upstream work are the “trailblazers” doing the essential work in communities.

“Grassroots organizations from across our region are changing the ways our community grows, including residents fostering well-being and building a better future for our neighbours and future generations,” she said at a recent presentation where groups were praised for their work.

Hope for Community Development received $50,000 and the money will be used to teach entrepreneurial skills to youth as well as after-school soccer programming for young boys and girls at Chandler-Mowat Community Centre.

“We are trying to create a space for them,” said group founder Ralph Dagoseh, who came to Canada from Liberia in 2006. The organization is working with parents from West African nations such as Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, who need help with their children.