Big Change at Skills for Change

Written by Administrator Thursday, 08 December 2011 14:11

For 19 years, Skills for Change has been celebrating the accomplishments of remarkable immigrants with their annual New Pioneers Awards. They hope you can join them next year to celebrate their 20th anniversary – with a new date, new venue and new name! The 2012 Pioneers for Change celebration will take place on June 6th at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

The announcement was made on December 7th at the Grand Hotel in Toronto – an evening all about new ideas.

Pioneers for Change Honorary Patron and Chair Alex Jadad (Chief Innovator and Founder of the University of Toronto/University Health Network Centre for Global e-health Innovation) started the evening with a stirring and convincing presentation about the need for change in the settlement sector.

Skills for Change Executive Director Cheryl May told the small but influential crowd about the agency’s plan to lead the charge toward innovation and change in the sector. Her background as the Social Innovation Lead at MaRS, and belief that the best way to deal with change was to embrace it, melded perfectly with the tradition of innovation at Skills for Change.

Under her guidance, Skills for Change recently completed a feasibility study that opened the door to a whole host of innovations focused on community hubs, immigrant women, workplace training, mentoring and much more.

With financial support from innovation partners like CIBC and KPMG and direction from human dynamos like May and Jadad, Skills for Change is looking forward to becoming a “living lab” – essentially beta testing a wide range of new ideas and plans to formally introduce a number of ground-breaking projects over the next few months.