35 years of Access Alliance: A celebration of creativity, collaboration & innovation
By Heather Corbin, Communications & Resource Development Officer, Access Alliance
On October 17th, 1988, Ontario’s Ministry of Health announced significant funding to formally establish Access Alliance as a community health centre, giving us the official mandate and resources to provide health promotion and primary health care services to four priority communities. The following year, in 1989, a new community-based and community-governed health center was born, the result of years of collaborative health-related volunteer work by committed professionals from the Korean, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Spanish-speaking communities in Toronto.
Over the next three-and-a-half decades, Access Alliance expanded its services, locations, staff, clients, and the communities we serve. While we have seen people and programs come and go, our commitment to innovations that best serve our newcomer clients has remained consistent. Through strategic partnerships and our dedication to health equity, we have broadened our reach to serve all of Toronto’s diverse communities of newcomers. At the same time, we’ve grown our programs and services to address a growing number of social determinants of health, from employment and education to food insecurity and social inclusion. Access Alliance now offers accessible, inter-professional primary health care services—including health promotion and capacity building—from three locations across the city.
Our first location at 509 College Street (right), and the cover of our 1988-1989 annual report (left)
In our very first annual report (1988-1989), Board Chair Sam Nguyen Duy noted, “The healthcare system is changing every day. The Centre needs to ensure that it be a creative contributor to these upcoming challenges.” Fast-forward to today, and we now have more than 35 years of creative contributions, upholding our founders’ innovative spirit and commitment to being responsive to our own communities’ emerging needs. 2024 marks the 35th anniversary of Access Alliance being formally established as a community health center, with the theme “A Celebration of Firsts.” This theme commemorates the anniversary year by celebrating the initiatives we’ve attempted, created, developed, and expanded over the years. We’re proud to take this time to reflect on the achievements that shaped who we are today. More importantly, we want our colleagues, collaborators, and broader communities to be inspired to bring about even more groundbreaking “firsts”, to address the persistent and emerging social determinants of health for our community.
Every Moment Matters
On April 19th we held our Volunteer Appreciation Event, as part of National Volunteer Week (NVW). Volunteers have been key to our success over the years—from our very earliest beginnings—and the event brought together both current volunteers and those from our near and distant past. This direct connection to our past, along with the NVW theme “Every Moment Matters” aligning with our many impactful moments, made it the perfect opportunity to launch our 35th anniversary celebrations.
Former board member Maria Antonieta Smith reckoned back to our first years, commenting that in the early 1980s, “The lack of special services geared to new settlers was terrible, it was an empty field. So, searching for solutions to the need for cultural interpretation on health services, members of four ethnocultural communities . . . got together to discuss ways to maximize their resources. At that time, Community Health Centres were just established with a focus to improve health and wellbeing of populations facing barriers in accessing services. Being client-centered and with an interdisciplinary team, it was the perfect model for the new organization, thus Access Alliance was created. An alliance of several ethno-cultural groups that made possible access to health services for their communities.”
Volunteering, then and now. Maria Antonieta Smith speaks at a board meeting in the 1990s (left), and again at our Volunteer Appreciation event in 2024 (right).
This model of identifying a need, then collaborating and innovating to create programs, services and other initiatives to meet that need is what we were built on, and continues to guide our work today. As does our appreciation for the committed community of workers—many of them volunteers—that it takes to manage the many moments of effort needed to see these innovations through to their successful ends.
At our Volunteer Appreciation event on April 19th, members of our current board cut the cake (left) and new volunteers from our Among Friends program show their love (right).
Sharing our story
Over the course of this anniversary year, we’re focussing our attention on 12 key “firsts”. Included in these firsts are our hotel refugee clinic, Access Alliance Language Services, community-based research and our Green Access program. The full list of firsts includes health care services created to address system gaps and barriers in an inclusive, accessible manner, as well as programs and initiatives built to better serve our high-priority populations. We’ve been looking back through a treasure trove of old photos, annual reports, and more, tracing our journey and enjoying the fun facts, interesting tidbits and surprising twists on this trip down memory lane. We’ll be sharing some of these discoveries in a variety of ways over our anniversary year. First things first: we’ve already rolled out our “firsts on the first” social media campaign, which will showcase each of our creative key “firsts” on the first day of each month. Check us out on social media to learn more!
Three posts from our “Firsts on the first” social media campaign.
Moving forward
It’s been a blast to look back on our 35 years and explore our stories of accomplishment and challenge. But as we’ve grown up and out in this city of newcomers, we’re even more driven to look forward. With one in eight people today either a migrant or forcibly displaced, we live in a world with one billion people on the move[1]. As a newcomer-serving community health center mandated to improve health outcomes for marginalized communities, the future holds much potential for building on our values, relationships, and initiatives. We will continue to actively seek out opportunities to innovate and improve on our existing systems, through evidence-informed practice, advocacy, collaboration, and inclusive, effective programs and services.
We’re pleased to be moving forward with you, our colleagues and communities, and invite you to join us over the next year as we share stories from our past and present, as well as upcoming plans for our ever-evolving organization. It’s a celebration of where we’ve been and where we’re going, and we’re honoured to share this journey with you.
[1] https://www.who.int/news/item/26-05-2023-the-world-health-assembly-extends-the-global-action-plan-for-refugee-and-migrant-health-until-2030