Wings’ Fledgings’ Flat

The Cause

To convert a basement storage area into the perfect place for youth to participate in safe, healthy, recreational activities while under the guidance of a skilled youth worker – the Fledglings’ Flat!! In particular, in order to offer this program in this space, we need a water closet!
Wings of Providence (“Wings”) offers second-stage shelter and affordable housing for women and children who have experienced family violence. Due to the lack of affordable housing in Edmonton, Wings decided to extend its services. On June 14th, 2012, Wings officially opened the Home Next Door – an affordable housing complex which provides a safe and secure home in a healthy, supportive community to women with children to promote continued healing and independence. The Home Next Door addresses family violence, multi-generational poverty, and has great potential for positive social change with the community.
To be effective in their mandate, Wings recognizes that there is a need to work with youth who have witnessed and experienced family violence. Although Wings provides a Youth Worker Program for children residing at Wings’ second stage shelter, there is a need to expand that program to include the youth at the Home Next Door. In order to achieve this we will need more space. As with all homes, and all families looking at placating their fledglings, Wings naturally looked towards the basement - the Home Next Door is the perfect place to expand the Youth Program but it needs to have a new water closet (and offices) built with a main recreation area (the Fledglings’ Flat) for the youth to enjoy.

Who Will it Benefit?

The obvious answer is the youth from Wings and the Home Next Door - kids who have witnessed and experienced family violence. However, the healing and guidance these youth will receive is very much a “pay it forward” scenario. The statistics are clear that without healing, counseling and opportunities to “normalize” their experiences, youth are at increased risk to be victims of, or perpetuate, family violence. The cycle must be broken. Although numbers always change, at any time there are approximately 30 school age children residing at Wings' second-stage shelter and 50 youth (school aged) residing at Wings' Home Next Door. The mothers and younger siblings of these youth who participate in the program will also benefit if there is well adjusted youth in their family. If Wings is able to expand the Youth Worker Program to the Home Next Door basement, kids will have a supportive and healthy space to spend their time after school. Wings works very closely with the schools in the community. These schools will indirectly benefit from the Home Next Door's basement space expansion by providing youth with a healthy and monitored space where they can participate in recreational activities, while also spending time with other children that have experience similar situations of violence in the home. The generational effect on helping just one of these kids is exponential.