I know that we have been away for a while…both of us are working on other projects (Mel’s busy with Lady Atelier and her new job at AWID, and I’m busy with HealthyHousing.ca and blogging for the Because I am a Girl Campaign).  So, if you’ll forgive us for being a bit absent, we’d like to ask you to help us out with something close to our hearts:

Our friend Zahra over at archiTEXT, a design think tank dedicated to social change, is in the running for two Pepsi Refresh grants. So, we’re hoping you’ll sign in, vote, and then vote again every day until August 31.

community.design.initiative:

The East Scarborough Storefront Community Design Initiative is exploring design and its ability to act as a mechanism for change. Focused on poverty reduction, it’s enabling young people in the Kingston-Galloway neighbourhood-designated as one of Toronto’s thirteen Priority Neighbourhoods for Investment-to conceptualize, design, and steward the creation of a community resource building. The mission is a legacy project, designed to articulate a national precedent and model for participatory design, creativity, and innovation in architecture through the engagement and empowerment of the community. Residents of Kingston-Galloway have identified that their community will emerge from its challenges if the capacity for services and programming are increased at the East Scarborough Storefront. The Refresh Grant would be allocated to the completion of Construction Phase One-the community kitchen and computer resource centre.

architecture+food+community:

Crescent Town, a priority neighborhood with the least amount of infrastructure investment in the city, where 10 out of 11 youth in the city say that there is not enough programming for youth in the community (and that the programs they would like to see are around healthy eating and cross-cultural interaction) will benefit from engaging with the process of designing for a community as well as with the education around where their food comes from.

The project will build a greenhouse to not only engage youth in one of Toronto’s thirteen priority neighborhoods in conversations about participatory design, the science of greenhouse architecture and growing food, but through experience – we have found that using design and architecture as a mechanism for engagement in challenged neighborhoods, bringing kids into this seemingly inaccessible discipline. It is also hoping to respond to emerging issues in this neighborhood.

So yea.  Vote now!  For both projects: architecture+food+community and community.design.initiative.