The print shop at eva’s phoenix: "training youth for life” essay

Eve Smith was the founder of Eve’s Phoenix Print shop, located in Toronto area is a socially and environmentally responsible commercial print shop that helps homeless and at risk youth to achieve self-reliance. Company mission is to work hard and find the solutions that create opportunities for homeless and at-risk youth to build healthy and productive futures that enable them to dismount the street life. There is a high demand for workers in the printing industry but very few Business initiatives that encourage young people to consider printing as a career choice. At the Eve’s Print Shop youths are receives: life skills training and counseling; on-the-job print shop training in graphic design and career development assistance.

Eva’s Phoenix offers this advantage to the industry as well as providing guidance to homeless and at risk youth by giving them structure, education and a path to self-improvement. Eve Phoenix mission is well recognized by its staff, partners and stakeholders. The General Environment segment: Demographic segment: The homeless community in Toronto has reached critical levels. It is estimated that 10, 000 young people between age 16 to 24 are currently ‘ living’ in poverty on Toronto streets . Eva’s Phoenix Print shop provides long term solutions by offering positive and collaborative programs and services that respond directly to the needs of homeless and at-risk youth in the community. Each year Print shop provides housing for 50 homeless street youth who are between 16 to 24 years, and one year, to participate in its employment and pre-apprenticeship programs.

With these opportunity youth are able to develop life skills, build careers and live independently. Economic segment: The rising instability in the labor market is increasing the risk of political and social turmoil. Currently, in Canada the official unemployment rate for persons aged 15 to 24 is 15. 1 percent.

The social crisis and the consequent crisis in education are the inevitable result of the capitalist economic system. Eve’s Print Shop, assisting other social entrepreneurs to assess the challenges and opportunities associated with social enterprise. These changes came as a result of learning how to optimize the blend of social, commercial and environmental value. Youth living at Eva’s Phoenix must be involved in a training or employment program. With the help of partner employers and private funders, Print shop provides pre employment support and work experience placements in the printing industry.

The political segment: To established social enterprise to involve with Political partners such as city councilors, provincial and federal members of parliament can be a key to moving a project along, and use their influence to bring other partners on board. Eva’s Phoenix has strong support from all their local representatives, and Toronto City Council. The Board members played an important role in helping the agency identify and manage the risks associated with a project. Municipal government staff is the key people within the city because they know how to work with the system, facilitate partnerships at all levels of government, and deal with necessary details such as building permits and approvals. The social segment: Eva’s Phoenix print shop is a charitable organization in the Canadian business.

The Print Shop launched as a social enterprise. Social enterprises are real businesses that work to achieve the social goals. This learning program allowed business leaders to visit three not-for-profit groups in Toronto to get a first-hand view of the challenges and successes faced by people who are homeless, and the effective work being done by organizations to address complex social issues.

Executive Director Maria Crawford developed the idea of social enterprises which allow the social entrepreneurs are to limit and maximize their economic return on investment. The idea was rise that a print shop might be a good fit for the social enterprise business for several reasons: • The printing field was growing and in desperate need of trained staff, so businesses were supportive of an initiative that would give individuals the necessary background to move smoothly into the field. • The training required to do the job was within the capacity of most of the youth at Eva’s Phoenix. • Youth who came through the training had excellent prospects for stable employment at good wages, and would receive help from employers to find positions in the field. Technological segment: Technology continues to change the printing industry and demand for new digital press is also growing rapidly. The innovation of the digital press has provided a source of income for printing companies that previously were in other phase of the business. With new digital press business are able make beautiful color in large format graphics that can be printed on canvas, vinyl, paper and any number of other media. The traditional printer’s role of putting ink on paper is not enough by itself anymore.

Eva’s Phoenix Print Shop is a social venture program and a registered charity that provides high quality, competitively-priced printing services and an award-winning training program for homeless and at-risk youth. The print shop training program for the youth consists of the soft skills necessary to successfully enter the labour market, as well as the hard skills associated with the printing industry jobs. The Industry Environment Analysis Threats of future expansion: The changes in technology, global competition and business practices, the modern print industry is changing. As a result, the traditional printing system is narrow in scope and failed to capture the number of companies that produce printed products. The growing print industry is also offers diversity of print-related services such as: paper-product manufacturing, graphic design, newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishing and the supply of packaging and labeling products and services. Employers have difficulty to find enough young people in careers in the printing and graphic communications sector.

Canada’s labour market in the printing industry and its employers are aggressively competing for talent. In addition to the barriers posed by lack of experience and little access to financing, a broader challenge is the limited interest in the printing industry among youth. Many training programs in the printing field have been closed due to declining enrolments and youth generally display little interest in pursuing careers in the printing sector. Eve phoenix print shop is a charitable social initiative provides homeless youth to develop life skills and live independently.

Print shop is planning to grow and expand in the near future. They face the challenge of maintaining quality of products and social outcomes as the enterprise becomes larger. Print shop has social cost which is obstacle it future expansion. To over come from this situation Print shop needs to get more partners involvement. Talk to community leaders including residents’ associations and faith leaders, local councilors and members of provincial parliament, and other youth serving agencies in the area. This will give everyone the chance to work with the larger community.

Involving everyone at an early stage in the project will make the work much easier in the long run. Rivalry: From small print shops to full-scale marketing firms, there is no doubt that the digital revolution will affect printing as much as any other industry. The print industry is highly competitive industry .

The successful firms are marked by an ability to capitalize on new opportunities and be more innovative than their competitors. These exceptional companies also continuously improve the effectiveness of their processes, the quality of their products and the level of their customer service. Developed a social enterprise and generated revenue for the organization at the same time is challenging job. The Print shop training programs are supported through funding from Canadian Social Investors and other partners which paid for job development staff as well as the salaries of the youth. The time period required to approve funding was extremely long. This resulted in considerable uncertainty for Eva’s Phoenix.

As a result, the organization found it very difficult to plan and recruit participants for new rounds of training. As well, program staffs were placed in a very difficult position because they did not know if their contracts would be renewed. The financial sustainability is another barrier for the organization to get competitive advantage in the printing industry. To over come from these issues print shop needs to develop their networking and open communications with leaders in the community and political levels to explain the project, discuss any concerns and secure their support.

Community leaders help Print shop to focuses on business operations and strategy decisions while the Graphics Instructor and Program coordinator have the respective industry and social expertise to lead the organization to its goals. Recommendation • Youth living at Eva’s Phoenix must be involved in a training or employment program. Having the right staff that is committed to the work and capable of exercising good judgment in difficult situations is essential. Getting involved with Community partners and social service agencies including youth serving organizations is an important role for Eva’s Phoenix. This will give everyone the chance to voice concerns, work though issues lend support and to get them on board to work with the larger community. Political and community support is also essential. • Help partners and funders to understand and meet the changing needs of the program as it evolves.

• Many people, organizations and businesses are interested in supporting youth to succeed to their full potential. Get involve with as many types of partners in the community as possible. All sectors have a role to play in solving homelessness. • Improve the capacity and effectiveness of youth-serving organizations to affect youth development through employment, education and training; • Improve the staff and leadership capacity of youth serving organizations. This attitude must start with an organization’s leadership and solid commitment to organizations mission and vision. • Influence and inform the development of public policy through research, information, advocacy and coalition-building. Reference: 1.

http://www. evasinitiatives. com/EVAsToolKit/CHP-1/chapt_1-2. htm2.

http://www. rotman. utoronto. ca/bic/case%20series/PDFs/Print.

pdf3. http://www. ccednet-rcdec. ca/files/ccednet/Eva_Phoenix_Ultimate_Final_EN. pdf