History

From a small grassroots organization established in 1978 to a vibrant and essential service provider empowering women to achieve their goals and overcome life's challenges and struggles.

Back in 1978 a group of women came together to strategize and finds ways in which newcomer women, immigrant and refugee could overcome poverty and their sense of isolation, their loss of self-worth and address challenges to education, employment and gender based violence. The idea to create a women's centre gained ground and came to life. Starting out as the Rexdale Immigrant Women's Project, the vision to improve the lives of women was born. Incorporated as Rexdale Women's Centre in 1982, the nascent vision grew to encompass a purposeful mission with services and programs as viable solutions for the challenges women faced.

Our vision for a better life for women and their families was and is the driving force in all that Rexdale Women's Centre's offers to the women who walk through our doors.

In the Centre's early existence, services were delivered in groups and many women who did not speak English had little opportunity to gain new skills and abilities. In 1989, the Centre undertook an enterprising review of services and our clients and made the bold decision to broaden services being offered thereby assisting a wider range of women in need.

From the historic day in which we were founded, Rexdale Women's Centre has never looked back. We looked ahead to the future to deliver services and programs in response to the needs of our communities. That future is our history. We have grown from three staff to more than eighty staff members, from offering services from one location to offering services from four permanent and more than twenty itinerant partnership locations, from offering a few services in three languages to offering a variety of services in nineteen different languages. Our services have expanded to include children, youth, adults and seniors of all cultures, backgrounds and immigration status.

For over 40 years, Rexdale Women's Centre helped more than 160,000 clients. Rexdale Women's Centre has helped our clients to learn English, to find employment, to find housing, to improve their parenting skills, to overcome intimate partner violence, to integrate and settle in the community, to overcome isolation and to become fully participating members in their community.

We have assisted our clients to overcome poverty and to feel valued and respected and to let them know that they are vital to the social fabric of our society.