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Office of Social Innovation

X A. Khan

X A. Khan - Continuing Education (Access Activations) '26

Project Title: 

Hunger Pains 

An Anthology by youth on OW/ODSP about our experiences of food insecurity

 

Project Description 

In 2016,  (PDF file) PROOF reported that individuals on social assistance experience food insecurity at a rate 11 times higher than the general population (external link) . Despite the drastic rise in cost of living since then, social assistance rates continue to linger far below the poverty line. Youth living on Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) face some of the most severe and persistent levels of food insecurity in Ontario. Despite being disproportionately and often intersectionally impacted by systemic violence, our voices remain erased and unheard, within the food justice sector and beyond. 

In 2026, the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council secured the SIAF grant to compile and publish an anthology of written and visual artworks by youth aged 18 to 35 with lived experience of Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program, about our experiences of food insecurity. 

We hope that the anthology, titled Hunger Pains, helps us all become more compassionate and curious towards hunger and food insecurity as experienced by OW/ODSP recipients, and that it helps us secure higher, more humanizing welfare payouts in so-called Canada. 

We encourage grassroots organizations advocating for increased social assistance budgets, academic institutions, community support workers, food justice organizations and others to utilize Hunger Pains in your work. 

We encourage everyone from all walks of life to interact with this publication. If you are someone on OW/ODSP we hope you feel seen and represented via Hunger Pains. And to know that you’re not alone. 

Some contributors have mutual aid funds set up. Please consider contributing to these. You can learn more via the TYFPC website. 

 

About [X / TYFPC / Contributors]

The Toronto Youth Food Policy Council is a volunteer advocacy group. We are comprised of youth from across Toronto working to tackle food insecurity. Our operations involve education, civil society engagement, and anti-oppression projects. We are a rotating body that is reformed annually. 

X A. Khan is a queer Pakhtun. She is an interdisciplinary, abstract artist. X uses art to conduct existential inquiries; exploring and interrogating ideas around truth, power, and what it means to be human. Her practice spans across visual, written and digital art mediums.