With COVID-19 on the rise in Toronto, it’s all hands on deck, including musicians.
Sistema Toronto, a non-profit organization that provides after-school music education to underserved Toronto neighbourhoods, has received private funding to launch a new vaccine support initiative.
- Despite a higher impact from COVID-19, only 5.5 percent in the Jane and Finch area have been vaccinated versus 22 percent of residents in the upscale St. Clair and Rosedale neighbourhood.
- Black Creek (including the Jane and Finch) has a rate of 1,182 cases per 100,000, four times higher than Toronto’s Rosedale-Moore Park neighbourhood.
The Ontario government is trying to provide access to pop-up vaccine locations. Newcomers, low-income families, and essential workers in the Parkdale, Jane-Finch, and East Scarborough areas face significant challenges with access to physicians.
Sistema Toronto will use the funding to leverage their network of teaching artists to provide the connections the public needs to quicken vaccinations in these more vulnerable areas.
“As a community music program, we are not typically in the business of giving out health advice and support, but at this time, the Government is failing these communities and we don’t see any other option. Someone has to step up,” said Andres Tucci-Clarke, Managing Director of Sistema Toronto.
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