Hands Up Canada
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Mission Statement
Hands Up Canada supports education in ensuring that students from poor, underemployed and disadvantaged families and communities have quality learning supplies along with the adequate nutrition, motivation and encouragement to pursue their studies and improve their future opportunities. Our goal is to provide emergency necessities to women, children and men who have left problematic, abusive, traumatic situations and find themselves living in shelters, foster homes or on the street often without anything except the clothes on their backs. We encourage communities to work with families and individuals to provide quality recreational and bonding experiences. By building bonds between the young and old we can pass down shared traditional methods and skills and provide lively interaction of caring and sharing between the generations. We work towards a better future for Canadians everywhere who struggle for shelter, food and education and live a marginalized existence. By supplying life necessities, learning skills and tools to gain employment we can help communities better support their most vulnerable members and empower them on their road to self-sufficiency.
About This Cause
Hands Up Canada has a vision of every Canadian getting the help he or she needs to have the basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing and education. We embrace the importance of of a shared community of values and traditions and a feeling of belonging and being part of a larger caring community. This sense of community expands beyond the smallest hamlet of a few hundred Canadians living near the Arctic Circle to the largest metropolitan centre of several million Canadians. We are project based meaning that we offer different projects to communities over the year. For example we will provide educational backpacks in the spring and fall and Christmas envelopes in the winter. Some of our recent projects are listed below. 215 Food Boxes in Memory of the 215 Children. Like so many others we are feeling shocked and horrified at the discovery of 215 residential school children who died at the hands of those who should have cared for and protected them. Hands Up Canada is planning to send 215 boxes of food and essential supplies to Inuit communities in memory of the 215 children who never returned to their loving families. Boots for Northern Kids. During the winter months we are sending up warm (-30-40C rating) boots to northern communities where the climate is harsh ad there is always a need for warm footwear. This programme has proven to be very popular and will continue 2022. Gift Envelopes for Inuit Children. Every year Hands Up Canada sends hundreds of gift envelopes to schools in Nunavut and Northwest Territories. This is always a very exciting and much anticipated time. Each envelope contains socks, a candy cane, a book, coloured pencils or crayons, a few small toys. For many of these children this is the only gift they will receive this Christmas. In 2021 we have shipped over 1400 Christmas gift envelopes to northern students. Community and School Programmes in Nunavut and Northwest Territories. Hands Up Canada has sent boxes ranging from basic supplies to gifts for students and elders to items for community sales that support efforts to bring affordable items to some of the most remote areas of Canada and provide funds for students to prepare holiday food boxes and communal meals to be shared with the elders in the communities. Emergency Diaper Bags It is often when a woman is pregnant or has a newborn child that she flees an abusive relationship and ends up in a woman's shelter without even the basic necessities for her young baby. These diaper backpacks are filled with sleepers, blankets, diapers, baby wipes, towels and toiletries to help her get started on her new life. We work with women's shelters and local agencies to identify those in need. To date we have given over 100 Emergency Diaper Bags to women in local Toronto shelters. In 2021 we started sending Emergency Diaper Bags to Inuvik, NT. We plan to reach out to more northern communities with this programme in 2022. Emergency Backpacks give a child who is suddenly entering a foster or emergency shelter basic necessities, including clothes and toiletries and a soft teddy bear to call their own. Emergency Backpacks help to relieve stress and uncertainty and provide comfort and reassurance to help them navigate through their changing life. At the moment our kids backpacks range from ages 1-4 but with the help of generous donors we will expand this age group right up to teens. Food Banks and Soup Kitchens in Nunavut and Northwest Territories. In remote fly-in only Canadian communities it is a challenge to get affordable food to feed impoverished people. Hands Up Canada has supported food banks and soup kitchens in many Inuit communities including Hall Beach, Sanikiluaq, Whale Cove, Ulukhaktok. Student Backpacks Some children from impoverished families just don’t have the tools to succeed at school. Hands Up Canada supplies Student Backpacks in the fall and Head Start Backpacks in the spring for pre-schoolers to help kids achieve success at school and encourage pride and commitment to education. In 2018 we gave over 400 student backpacks to local Toronto children in need and sent another 100 up to young pre-schoolers in Taloyoak Nunavut. In 2019 with the kind support of our donors we gave 417 back-to-school backpacks to local Toronto children in need. We also started a new outreach for women returning to school to upgrade their skills to be able to obtain jobs and support their families. In 2020 with the uncertainty of Covid we gave out 220 backpacks with 80 going to Indigenous communities in Ontario. Headstart Summer Backpacks for Nunavut and Northwest Territories. Each spring we send backpacks to young Inuit children from pre-school to grade 3. Bags are filled with tools to encourage reading readiness, development of fine motor skills and basic number and math knowledge. Making learning fun helps get young students ready for school in the fall and sets them on a path of educational success. In the spring of 2021 we sent 238 Headstart Summer Backpacks. We will begin collecting items in January for our 2022 programme of early learning backpacks. Inuit Women's Shelters Hands Up Canada has been involved with women's shelters and support groups in Nunavut. Currently we send supplies to The Kataujaq Women's Shelter's The Safe Haven Group. Inuit Outreach Programme Inukshuk Guardian Society in Iqaluit helps homeless and impoverished people in the capital of Nunavut especially when temperatures in winter drop as low as -60C. Hands Up Canada has sent boxes of supplies with thermal socks, hats, gloves, food, flashlights, etc.