Shaheda Azami

Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services

Incorporated 30+ years ago, Access Alliance is a nonprofit multi-service community organization that provides health, settlement, community development and other services to vulnerable immigrant and refugee communities. It operates three clinics and two community hubs across Toronto, offering resources, provide links, conduct research and build capacity to enable individuals, families and communities to achieve health with dignity. The Access Model - our model of care for equity directs interdisciplinary health and community service teams to break barriers (e.g. language, poverty, health insurance, immigration status, gender, or sexual orientation) and ensure equitable services. In addition to direct client services, we have a robust Community-Based Research department that purposefully generates evidence to inform our work and advocate for the most vulnerable. We also operate a social enterprise providing interpretation, translation, and language access initiatives support, engaging a network of professionals to deliver quality language services in over 180 languages.