Message from our Board President and Executive Director
To our community of partners in foundational learning,
Thank you for another successful year! Our joint efforts are coming to fruition—Calgarians are
embracing the value of learning. We see evidence everywhere that foundational learning turns
lives around, protects families and helps communities thrive. Thank you for everything you do
to equip learners with knowledge and perspective, for helping Calgary Learns achieve its mission and for building a strong city.
In 2011 we saw even greater innovation and collaboration in foundational learning opportunities across the city. From a bike shop to a community kitchen, a post-secondary institution to a
church basement—learning opportunities were everywhere. Calgary Learns funded 30 diverse
programs for over 11,000 learners in 2011. This is an impressive number, but for a city of our
size we know that so much more needs to be done. Our board of directors identified sustainability as Calgary Learns’ number one priority. This includes: financial viability, ensuring our
alignment with community needs, continuing to support vibrant foundational learning programs as well as inspiring social innovation, capacity building and collaborative efforts.
We worked closely with our partners in 2011 on several exciting and innovative projects. The
Adult Aboriginal Learning Forum with Further Education Society allowed us to reach new
groups of learners and stakeholders. Our 2010 Integrating Foundational Learning (IFL) project
with Literacy Alberta came into full bloom, thanks to Terri Peters and her team of literacy mentors. IFL supported adult learning program providers to integrate essential skills and rich literacy learning into a myriad of different educational settings. New partners joined us in the
Action on Learning and Literacy Calgary group as we continued to meet and share success stories and strategies for a stronger literacy community. We also took part in the inaugural event
for Financial Literacy Week and were pleased to profile this important component of literacy.
We hope this report and our LOLA Storybook capture some of the magic of your programs and
our work together. We owe it to learners to make all learning opportunities deeply relevant
and to help them move their personal learning goals forward. We are confident that our community did exactly this in 2011. Congratulations on a great year of learning Calgary! Let’s keep
it going in 2012.
Mumtaz Ebrahim
Board President
Krista Poole
Executive Director
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Membership 2011
Agapé Language Centre
Ebrahim, Mumtaz
Alberta Network of Immigrant Women
Families Matter Society
Anderson, Lorene
Further Education Society of Alberta
Association of the Inside Out Theatre Project
Immigrant Services Calgary
Baker, Owen
Larson, Brian
Benary, Edel
Laughlin, Jim
Bow Valley College
Literacy Alberta
Bredin Institute
MacKenzie, Laureen
CAFÉ Institute
Making Changes Employment Association
Calgary Catholic Immigration Society
Mason, Trudy
Calgary Chinese Community Service Association
McCormick, Bill
Calgary Immigrant Educational Society
Millican Ogden Community Association
Calgary Immigrant Women's Association
Momentum
Calgary John Howard Society
Mount Royal University
Calgary Learning Centre
Osenton, Celia
Calgary Public Library
Palamar, Cassie
Calgary Scope Society
Rehabilitation Society of Calgary
Calgary Sexual Health Centre Society
Servants Anonymous Society of Calgary
Calgary Workers Resource Centre
Skene, Diane
Canadian Mental Health Association
Skipper, Jeff
Centre for Newcomers
Stewart, Cam
Closer to Home Community Services
Szasz-Redmond, Eva
Cooperative ESL Ministries
Two Wheel View
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Society
VECOVA
Dodge, Karen
Women's Centre of Calgary
Eaton, Sarah
YWCA of Calgary
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Congratulations to Cam
Cam Stewart has just completed his final term with the
Calgary Learns board. Cam was with us for six years,
holding the post of President for three full years.
Throughout his tenure, he demonstrated strong leadership, and integrated a spirit of fun, inclusion and learning
within our board. Cam helped to initiate and take part in
our fund development strategy, led strategic planning
work, and inspired our recent work with the Aboriginal
community. In 2011, Cam was awarded the Outstanding
Contribution to Adult Learning Award from the Community Learning Network. This award is presented to individuals who inspire lifelong learning, display leadership
and exceed the expectations of their position. Cam was
also nominated for the Heart of Calgary Award through
Volunteer Calgary.
Cam Stewart with CLN Executive Director Enayat Aminzadah
and Krista Poole
Thanks for everything Cam, we will miss you!
Staff
Krista Poole
Executive Director
Megan Williams
Communications Coordinator
Jeannie Finch
Grants Coordinator
Clare Pludek
Accountant
Board
Mumtaz Ebrahim—President
Brian Larson—Vice President
Jim Laughlin—Treasurer
Cam Stewart— Past President
Lorene Anderson
Bill McCormick
Cassie Palamar
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Owen Baker
Celia Osenton
Jeff Skipper
Integrating Foundational Learning Project
How do we help foundational learners get the most out of a program?
How do we prepare them for further learning success?
What the IFL
Participants Say:
“The foundational
learning techniques
helped students
realize that there is
a lot they already
know.”
“These techniques
empower adults
to learn what
they NEED to
learn.”
“The classroom is
more active and
encourages students to help
each other,
which will lead
to improvements
in everyone’s
knowledge in
class.”
Integrating Foundational Learning (IFL) is 20-month special project with Literacy
Alberta to work with staff from nine of our funded agencies and address the above
questions. These nine programs offer meaningful learning opportunities in our
Community Issues and Employability Enhancement areas. Even before the project,
most of the programs intuitively met foundational learners at their level of skill. The
IFL project made explicit the literacy and essential skills* included in foundational
learning and helped program staff strategize around embedding these skills
in their programs.
Through a combination of group workshops and mentoring, IFL increased participating educators’ awareness of literacy and essential skills in an innovative model
that is:
· In community – collaborating with vibrant non-profit agencies
· Asset-based – showing how to build on the learning that already takes place
· Learner-focused – learners identifying their own learning goals
· Giving educators a framework for assessing learners’ increase in skills and
literacy practices
Many of the IFL participants will continue working into 2012 with their IFL literacy
mentors. The project has its final wrap-up and report in April 2012. IFL has seen
remarkable success as a model thanks to the expert leadership of IFL coordinator,
Terri Peters of Literacy Alberta, the wise guidance of the literacy mentors, and the
commitment of the participating agencies. We hope to continue the IFL model into
the future and offer it to other funded agencies.
*The nine Essential Skills: reading, document use, numeracy and math, writing, computer use, oral communication, working with others, thinking, continuous learning.
“I feel inspired by
everything I’ve
learned—
especially the
Thinking Skills
workshop. Embedding essential
skills into programming really
helps engage
participants so
they are taking
an active role in
their learning.”
Terri Peters with Calgary SCOPE staff Franceska Lien and literacy mentor Kathleen Biersdorff
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Aboriginal Adult Learning Forum
How do we, as a community of adult educators, understand and effectively address
the learning needs of Aboriginal foundational adult learners in Calgary?
Early in 2011 Calgary Learns convened an Aboriginal Adult Learning
Forum advisory team comprised of leadership from the Further
Education Society, Calgary Urban Aboriginal Initiative, Bow Valley
College – Aboriginal Centre, Literacy Alberta, and Calgary Learns.
Partners also included Adrian Wolfleg, Lori Villebrun and other Aboriginal advisors. We wanted to pull together recommendations from
Aboriginal learners, Elders, service providers and adult learning providers on how we can do more together in Calgary. With support
from TD Canada Trust, Alberta Advanced Education and Technology
and Alberta Employment and Immigration, we set to work.
We started by celebrating success in Aboriginal adult learning.
On October 5, the Further Education Society of Alberta and Calgary
Manitok Thompson
Learns, along with members of our advisory team, held a Celebration of Aboriginal Adult Learning. Blackfoot leader and ceremonialist, Leonard Bastien opened
with prayer. Manitok Thompson, former Education Minister for NWT and Nunavut gave an inspiring keynote and Michelle Thrush, Genie award-winning actor, capped the day with a wonderful one-woman play.
We asked participants: What is success in learning? Cross-cultural awareness was seen as a key
component of success, especially in the sense of understanding oneself as a contemporary Aboriginal navigating urban life. Multi-generational and holistic approaches to learning were often
mentioned. The group identified the retelling of Aboriginal history from an Aboriginal perspective as a major need—and the need to feature this perspective in the formal education of youth
and adults alike.
On December 5, a smaller group of mostly Aboriginal leaders and
educators gathered to reflect on the Celebration’s themes and to
recommend further action. Using the World Café discussion model,
small groups generated a wealth of information. These groups emphasized the need for peer-to-peer leadership and mentoring, the
importance of holistic teaching methods, and the desire to provide
educators with promising educational models and practices framed
in an Aboriginal perspective.
The conversation is still just beginning. Over the next year we hope
to reconvene participants to confirm what we heard and to build an
action plan together.
Michelle Thrush
Imagine if it were standard practice to invite traditional knowledge holders into programs and to
stock classrooms with resources offering Indigenous perspectives on study topics. Our vision,
shaped by the Forum's recommendations, is an urban learning landscape where a large variety of
appealing educational opportunities are available, all with high success rates for Aboriginal learners.
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2011 Grants to Member Organizations
In 2011 Calgary Learns allocated over $1 million to foundational learning in Calgary. With this
support, 20 of our member organizations provided a wide variety of learning opportunities
for adult Calgarians to help them acquire the skills they need to fully participate in life, community and work. Our funding is provided by the Ministry of Alberta Advanced Education
and Technology. For more information about these grants or to learn more about our funding, please see our website: www. calgarylearns.com.
PROGRAM funding provides renewable grants for programs in the following four categories
to support non-credit learning opportunities for adult foundational learners in Calgary.
Adult Basic Literacy
Bow Valley College
Building Reading and Writing Skills
Bow Valley College
Lifeline to Literacy
Bow Valley College
Speech-Assisted Reading and Writing
Calgary John Howard Society
Learning Opportunities Program
Calgary Public Library
Digital Literacy in the Community
Further Education Society of Alberta
Family Literacy Program
Mount Royal University
Transitional Vocational Program
Evening Adult Basic Education
Total Adult Basic Literacy
$36,040
$21,700
$30,235
$58,287
$16,588
$62,217
$38,675
$263,742
English Language Learning
Bow Valley College
Computer Enhanced ESL Literacy
Bow Valley College
ESL Volunteer Tutor Program
Bow Valley College
Volunteer ESL Tutor Training Project
Calgary Chinese Community Services
Association
Stepping Stones: Forward into the
Community
Calgary Immigrant Women’s
Association
Pebbles in the Sand
$57,256
YWCA of Calgary
English for New Canadians - Central
YWCA of Calgary
English for New Canadians - Outreach
$61,200
$34,625
Total English Language Learning
$290,490
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$36,386
$27,432
$22,591
$51,000
Employability Enhancement
Calgary Catholic Immigration Society
Computer Training for Employment
Calgary Immigrant Educational Society
Computer Combo Program
Calgary John Howard Society
Learning Education Enhancement
Program
Calgary Workers Resource Centre
Employment Rights, Obligations and
Benefits Education Program
$18,360
Momentum
ABCs of Small Business
$58,548
$43,621
$47,539
$58,910
Total Employability Enhancement
$226,978
Community Issues
Association of the Inside Out
Integrated Theatre Project
Inside Out Integrated Theatre
$20,000
Calgary SCOPE Society
Integrated Community Kitchen Program
Canadian Mental Health Association
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Society
Peer Options Workshops
Family-Focused Sign Language
Instruction
$12,000
$22,634
$15,771
Families Matter Society
Community-Based Family Education
Two-Wheel View / Good Life Bicycle
Shop
Immigrant Services Calgary
Recycle-A-Bicycle Empowerment
Program
Citizenship Learning Project
$88,600
$9,400
$31,844
Total English Language Learning
$200,249
Total Program Grants in 2011
$981,459
INITIATIVE funding provides one-time project grants to research, develop and pilot innovative
non-credit learning opportunities for adult foundational learners.
Initiative Grants
Calgary John Howard Society
Words to Success
Calgary Immigrant Educational Society
Accounting Skills Training
Calgary Immigrant Women’s
Association
Which Button Do I Push?
Calgary Sexual Health Centre
Helping Your Child Grow Up OK: A
Parent's Guide to Sexual Health in Canada
Families Matter Society
Post-Partum Materials Review and
Translation
$10,000
Total Initiative Grants in 2011
$44,399
Total 2011 Grants
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$10,000
$9,749
$10,000
$4,650
$1,025,858
Summary of the 2011 Financial Statements
2011
2010
785,294
803,206
785,294
4,089
807,295
25,395
15,715
Deferred Contributions
621,061
646,822
Net Assets
138,838
144,758
785,294
807,295
1,309,812
1,281,483
106,297
106,178
1,416,109
1,387,661
981,459
931,214
Special Project
24,650
43,132
Initiative Projects
19,564
49,996
393,712
358,659
2,644
9,950
1,422,029
1,392,951
(5,920)
(5,290)
($)
($)
Statement of Financial Position
December 31, 2011
Assets
Current Assets
Capital Assets
Total Assets
Liabilities and Net Assets
Liabilities
Total Liabilities and Net Assets
Statement of Revenue and Expenditures
For the year ended December 31, 2011
Revenue
Alberta Government
Other Income
Total Revenue
Expenses
Program Funding
General & Administrative
Amortization
Total Expenditures
Excess (deficiency) of revenue
over expenditures
A copy of the complete 2011 audited financial statements is available through the Calgary Learns Offices.
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THANK YOU to all our partners and donors. Your support and
generosity made the work we do possible in 2011 and beyond!
OUR FUNDERS
Alberta Advanced Education and Technology, Campus Alberta Partnerships, CALC grant
Alberta Advanced Education and Technology, Community Partnerships and Literacy
Alberta Employment and Immigration
Culture and Community Spirit
OUR VOLUNTEERS
PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada Foundation
Board members
Funding proposal review teams
LOLA event volunteers
OUR DONORS
LOLA
selection committee
Alberta Association for
Jeff Skipper
Multicultural Education
Anonymous Donor 1
Anonymous Donor 2
Brian Larson
Bunch Projects
Cam Stewart
Cassie Palamar
Celia Osenton
Clare Pludek
Corinna Totino
Edel Benary
Eva Szasz-Redmond
Glenbriar Technologies Inc.
Jeannie Finch
Jim Laughlin
Jim Osenton
Krista Poole
Lorene Anderson
Marina Stewart
Mumtaz Ebrahim
Megan Williams
Oilfield Electrical Inspection Ltd.
Owen Baker
Spirit Pipelines Ltd.
Trudy Mason
TD Canada Trust Prairie Region
Young EnergyServe Inc
DONATIONS/ SERVICES IN KIND
Adrian Wolfleg
Bow Valley College
Bow Valley College, Aboriginal Centre
Brian Larson
Calgary Learning Centre
Calgary Mental Health Association
Calgary Public Library
Calgary Learning Centre
Calgary Reads
Calgary Urban Aboriginal Initiative
Community Learning Network
Emerge Learning
Families Matter
Further Education Society of Alberta
Glenbow Museum
Manitok Thompson
Momentum
iCCAN
Keyera Energy
Literacy Alberta
Scope
Owl’s Nest Books
TD Canada Trust
UpStart United Way
Wesley Pohl Designs
L to R: Krista Poole, Mumtaz Ebrahim, Cam Stewart and Owen Baker with Don Bunch of Bunch Projects, Jack and Doreen Hortness of Oilfield Electrical, Stephanie, and Ryan Hilton of Spirit Pipelines
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