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Author: Dave McGinn
When the late urban thinker Jane Jacobs imagined the power of an individual to transform communities, she had in mind someone exactly like Sabina Ali.
So it’s only fitting that Ms. Ali was awarded this year’s Jane Jacobs Prize, an honour given out by Spacing magazine each year to individuals who enrich life in Toronto in ways that exemplify Ms. Jacobs’ ideas.
R.V. Burgess Park was more urban blight than public space when the mother of four from India arrived in Thorncliffe Park in 2008. There were only two swings for kids to play on, and trash everywhere. The splash pad was broken. The lights weren’t working.
And yet she felt it could be a great public space for Thorncliffe’s teeming population of more than 30,000 people.
Ms. Ali rallied like-minded fellow residents and formed the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee. The group has transformed the once desolate park into a thriving neighbourhood hub: Friday night markets, a refurbished splash pad, arts and gardening programs for kids and much more.
Last year, North America’s first public tandoor oven made its debut in the park, something the committee had first proposed to the city in 2011.
“It’s unique, and we thought it would be really good to invite people from all over Toronto to come and learn what tandoor is,” says Ms. Ali, director of the TPWC.
“If I can make a small amount of positive change in anybody’s life or bring a smile on their face, I think that’s a big achievement for us.”
