Leveraging community-arts for immigrant integration

The research investigates how community-arts projects that engage newcomers produce individual and collective outcomes that benefit immigrants and the wider community, including helping enhance their social networks and employment integration.

A variety of cohorts participate in Welcome to the Neighbourhood (WTTN) programming. These include: newcomer artists and artist ambassadors, who receive foundational training in community-arts with Mabelle Arts, followed by internships and mentoring opportunities with an arts organization or community partner; community members and residents of community housing in the local neighborhood on Mabelle Avenue, for instance, low-income seniors, newcomers, immigrants, youth and children; and clients of immigrant-serving agencies who partner with Mabelle Arts, (e.g. Arab Community Centre of Toronto, Rexdale Community Health Centre, etc.).

The objective is to assess the role and efficacy of community-based arts approaches and methodologies for immigrant engagement, mobilization and integration facilitated by the WTTN program at Mabelle Arts.

The methodology includes the following approaches and initiatives:

• Desk research involving a review of the programs, reports and activities of Mabelle Arts and their outcomes;
• Conducting an environmental scan of other community-arts programs with an assessment of funding models;
• Interviews with 15 participants of the WTTN program and two focus groups with 16 Mabelle Arts staff members and partner organizations;
• Convening a hybrid workshop with participants from civil society, the arts, researchers and interested residents showcasing the results of the project;
• Creating a Toolkit as an output of the project.

Presentations

Several presentations have been made by the research team during the following migration conferences in 2025, to share learnings from our experience of working on this partnership project with the community arts agency, Mabelle Arts: CERFMS, Metropolis, and the IMISCOE Annual Conference.