Canyon Corridor

Canyon Corridor is an urban neighborhood in Phoenix Arizona. With a population of 20,000 people, we are extremely diverse, with over 27 languages spoken. Many refugees have made Canyon Corridor their home, giving all community members access to different cultures: Latino, Burundi, Burmese, Iraqi, Iranian, Vietnamese, Bosnian, Philippine, Chinese, Japanese and more. In addition to our diversity, our community is resource rich and includes several parks, a local university, strong faith based communities, several apartment complexes with large clubhouses for community activities /gatherings and a weed and seed project. Many of the challenges we face, such as lack of retail and high rates of abandoned and foreclosed homes, result from a lack of community and economic development.

Our broad vision for the neighborhood is to reweave the fabric of the Canyon Corridor community to become more socially and economically vibrant. Our contribution to that vision so far has been to:

• Engage residents of all ages and cultural backgrounds in neighborhood academies and workshops that build leadership skills, and work with local residents of all organizations and organizations and institutions to organize community events that helped build leadership, community connection and raise awareness of our work
• Create social networking profiles for our community work,
• Leverage our community partnerships to provide ESL, and exercise classes for all ages and multigenerational parenting classes
• Organize spaces to encourage intergenerational interaction including our first “community life centers”   which utilize exisiting physical spaces to create intergenerational activities, meetings and classes and community gardens
• Support the design and development of a local housing complex that will provide opportunities for intergenerational interaction, community building and leadership development