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Krista Poole Executive Director

Mumtaz Ebrahim Board President

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 mis-sion and for building a strong city.

In 2011 we saw even greater innovation and collaboration in foundational learning opportuni-ties 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 sustain-ability as Calgary Learns’ number one priority. This includes: financial viability, ensuring our alignment with community needs, continuing to support vibrant foundational learning pro-grams 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 men-tors. IFL supported adult learning program providers to integrate essential skills and rich liter-acy 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 sto-ries 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 com-munity did exactly this in 2011. Congratulations on a great year of learning Calgary! Let’s keep it going in 2012.

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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 leader-ship, 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 Commu-nity Learning Network. This award is presented to indi-viduals 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.

Thanks for everything Cam, we will miss you!

Staff

Krista Poole Megan Williams Executive Director Communications Coordinator

Jeannie Finch Clare Pludek Grants Coordinator Accountant

Board Mumtaz Ebrahim—President Brian Larson—Vice President Lorene Anderson Owen Baker Jim Laughlin—Treasurer Bill McCormick Celia Osenton Cam Stewart— Past President Cassie Palamar Jeff Skipper

Cam Stewart with CLN Executive Director Enayat Aminzadah and Krista Poole

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“I feel inspired by everything I’ve learned—especially the Thinking Skills workshop. Em-bedding essential skills into pro-gramming 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

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? 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 partici-pating 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 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 stu-dents to help each other, which will lead to improvements in everyone’s knowledge in class.”

What the IFL Participants Say:

*The nine Essential Skills: reading, document use, numeracy and math, writing, com-puter use, oral communication, working with others, thinking, continuous learning.

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Manitok Thompson

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 Abo-riginal advisors. We wanted to pull together recommendations from Aboriginal learners, Elders, service providers and adult learning pro-viders 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 Learns, along with members of our advisory team, held a Celebra-

tion of Aboriginal Adult Learning. Blackfoot leader and ceremonialist, Leonard Bastien opened with prayer. Manitok Thompson, former Education Minister for NWT and Nunavut gave an in-spiring keynote and Michelle Thrush, Genie award-winning actor, capped the day with a wonder-ful 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 Abo-riginal navigating urban life. Multi-generational and holistic approaches to learning were often mentioned. The group identified the retelling of Aboriginal history from an Aboriginal perspec-tive 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 em-phasized 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.

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.

Michelle Thrush

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2011 Grants to Member Organizations

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 $36,040

Bow Valley College Lifeline to Literacy $21,700

Bow Valley College Speech-Assisted Reading and Writing $30,235

Calgary John Howard Society Learning Opportunities Program $58,287

Calgary Public Library Digital Literacy in the Community $16,588

Further Education Society of Alberta Family Literacy Program $62,217

Mount Royal University Transitional Vocational Program Evening Adult Basic Education

$38,675

Total Adult Basic Literacy

$263,742

English Language Learning

Bow Valley College Computer Enhanced ESL Literacy $36,386

Bow Valley College ESL Volunteer Tutor Program $27,432

Bow Valley College Volunteer ESL Tutor Training Project $22,591

Calgary Chinese Community Services Association

Stepping Stones: Forward into the Community

$51,000

Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association

Pebbles in the Sand $57,256

YWCA of Calgary English for New Canadians - Central $61,200

YWCA of Calgary English for New Canadians - Outreach $34,625

Total English Language Learning

$290,490

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, com-munity 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 fund-ing, please see our website: www. calgarylearns.com.

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Employability Enhancement

Calgary Catholic Immigration Society Computer Training for Employment $43,621

Calgary Immigrant Educational Society Computer Combo Program $47,539

Calgary John Howard Society Learning Education Enhancement Program

$58,910

Calgary Workers Resource Centre Employment Rights, Obligations and Benefits Education Program

$18,360

Momentum ABCs of Small Business $58,548

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 $12,000

Canadian Mental Health Association Peer Options Workshops $22,634

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Society Family-Focused Sign Language Instruction

$15,771

Families Matter Society Community-Based Family Education $88,600

Two-Wheel View / Good Life Bicycle Shop

Recycle-A-Bicycle Empowerment Program

$9,400

Immigrant Services Calgary Citizenship Learning Project $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 $10,000

Calgary Immigrant Educational Society Accounting Skills Training $9,749

Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association

Which Button Do I Push? $10,000

Calgary Sexual Health Centre Helping Your Child Grow Up OK: A Parent's Guide to Sexual Health in Canada

$4,650

Families Matter Society Post-Partum Materials Review and Translation

$10,000

Total Initiative Grants in 2011

$44,399

Total 2011 Grants

$1,025,858

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Summary of the 2011 Financial Statements

2011 ($)

2010 ($)

Statement of Financial Position December 31, 2011

Assets

Current Assets 785,294 803,206

Capital Assets 4,089 Total Assets 785,294 807,295

Liabilities and Net Assets

Liabilities 25,395 15,715

Deferred Contributions 621,061 646,822

Net Assets 138,838 144,758

Total Liabilities and Net Assets 785,294 807,295

Statement of Revenue and Expenditures For the year ended December 31, 2011

Revenue

Alberta Government 1,309,812 1,281,483

Other Income 106,297 106,178

Total Revenue 1,416,109 1,387,661

Expenses Program Funding 981,459 931,214

Special Project 24,650 43,132

Initiative Projects 19,564 49,996

General & Administrative 393,712 358,659

Amortization 2,644 9,950

Total Expenditures 1,422,029 1,392,951

Excess (deficiency) of revenue over expenditures

(5,920) (5,290)

A copy of the complete 2011 audited financial statements is available through the Calgary Learns Offices.

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L to R: Krista Poole, Mumtaz Ebrahim, Cam Stewart and Owen Baker with Don Bunch of Bunch Pro-jects, Jack and Doreen Hortness of Oilfield Electrical, Stephanie, and Ryan Hilton of Spirit Pipelines

THANK YOU to all our partners and donors. Your support and generosity made the work we do possible in 2011 and beyond!

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

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 PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada Foundation OUR DONORS Alberta Association for 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

Jeff Skipper 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

OUR VOLUNTEERS Board members

Funding proposal review teams LOLA event volunteers

LOLA selection committee

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