What’s Happening at Humber’s Centre for Social Innovation
Tags: Vol. 5, January 2025, Issue 1
Housing and Displacement
CommuniACTION Social Hack-a-thon
The Centre for Social Innovation and Longo’s Centre for Entrepreneurship at Humber Polytechnic are co-hosting their second annual social hack-a-thon. Last year’s theme focused on food security (the InnovEAT Challenge) in partnership with Daily Bread. This year, student teams will be asked to come up with creative solutions to community displacement due to development.
Applications for Humber students to join the challenge closed in January. Accepted students were invited to join us at the kick-off event on Saturday, January 25, 2025 to learn more about the issue with our community partner, CP Planning, and work on case and pitch skills with Longo’s Centre for Entrepreneurship. The challenge is a great chance for students to hone their problem-solving skills, work with peers, and compete for monetary prizes ($325 honorarium per student).
Impact Evaluation and Systems Change
Humber CSI Impact Evaluation
The CSI is developing a toolkit to facilitate effective social impact evaluation throughout the polytechnic. As Humber strives to be an intentional leader in positive community impact, it is important to reflect on the fact that every project or venture has a social impact, whether or not it is considered or measured. Research continues with a deep dive into current social impact evaluation measures and frameworks. This student-led research will become foundational in the CSI’s future impact evaluation work.
Map the System at Humber
Map the System (MTS) at Humber is now part of the CSI family of projects. The team of faculty from FLAS are looking to grow with more student and faculty participants, and we’re leading that charge with them! MTS is a global competition led by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University and Humber has been participating for over five years. Last year, the first-place prize in the Canadian national-level competition was captured by Chandra (Nat) Limiarja, a Humber student in the Research Analyst Program, in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences (FLAS).
We continue to encourage faculty and students to get involved by integrating it into the classroom, being mentors, or participating in the Humber’s local Map the System competition for 2025 or in the future. Learn more about how to get involved by emailing daniel.bear@humber.ca.
Mental and Physical Health
Neurodiversity
In partnership with the Centre for Innovation in Health and Wellness, the CSI has been conducting research to explore the different models to understand neurodiversity and how that impacts policy and procedures to support neurodiverse learners in a polytechnic environment. In tandem, the CSI has also been working with community partners to explore the wraparound supports and educational delivery to best set up neurodiverse learners for hands-on careers. Neuro-atypical individuals (including epilepsy, ADHD, high functioning autism, etc) continue to be underrepresented in the labour market. Providing evidence-based recommendations and strategies facilitates more inclusive and supportive pathways to employment for neurodiverse individuals, ultimately contributing to a more diverse and equitable workforce.
Rastafarian Health
Although they make up a relatively small population in Canada, Rastafarian communities are largely marginalized in the Canadian healthcare system. Research with a CSI student and our community partner Diversity Talk aims to understand how Canada’s healthcare currently treats marginalized populations with unique cultural or religious needs and how the system can be more inclusive of these overlooked individuals.
The GARDENS Project
The GARDENS Project has wrapped up the 2024 growing season, with added education on how to winterize garden beds. In partnership with LAMP Community Health Centre, a new cohort of South Etobicoke community members will be selected in the new year for eight weeks of practical learning. Specifically, the CSI has wrapped up an impact evaluation based on how the GARDENS Project affects participants’ well-being in order to better describe the benefits and provide suggestions for future experiences.
Follow @TheGARDENSLakeshore on Instagram for updates about the upcoming 2025 educational and growing season!
Sustainable Fashion and Student Support
Threads of Care at Humber Polytechnic
In collaboration with the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, Student Success and Engagement, IGNITE, and the Fashion Arts and Business program in the Longo Faculty of Business, the first Humber Helps: Threads of Care event was held at North campus on December 12, 2024. As many students face financial challenges this free clothing and shoe giveaway, sponsored by Brands for Canada, was meant to help students ease the cost of student life. Over 90 students were able to collect brand new clothing items. Keep an eye out for future events taking place throughout 2025!
For more information about Humber’s Centre for Social Innovation, please visit www.humber.ca/socialinnovation or email Daniel.Bear@humber.ca. If you have a project or research idea about social innovation, we would be happy to connect!
