HISTORY
It was late in the year 1926 as industrialist Charles Johnson sat in his Ville St. Pierre office. He was thinking of his employees, many of whom were living in the area we now know as Little Burgundy. Johnson had a strong social conscience. He was concerned with the workers' material, social, moral and spiritual welfare. A man of action, Johnson approached Montreal Presbyterian community with his plan for a "settlement house" to keep the children off the street and the need for a structure and financing to support it. Motivated and persuasive, he came away with a grant of $100 from his colleagues to cover the first year's operation. With this and the support of the Johnson family, Tyndale House came into being in early 1927 in the area of des Seigneurs and Notre Dame Streets. In the 1970's the Anglican Diocese of Montreal joined The Presbyterian Church in Canada in support of Tyndale which then became known as Tyndale St-Georges.

From the outset, Tyndale House focused on services for youth. It has never lost that emphasis, while broadening its sphere of activities to meet the needs of the surrounding community. It has been instrumental in the creation of offshoot services: Le Garde-Manger pour tous, Youth in Motion, the Little Burgundy Council, the Coalition de la Petite-Bourgogne, the Little Burgundy Festival, Action Refugee Montreal and most recently the CPE Tyndale St-Georges, a subsidized day-care centre.

In keeping with its past, Tyndale St-Georges Community Centre continues to work as a not-for-profit charitable organization, providing services to more than 2,000 members of the Little Burgundy community through programs extending from pre-school to adult development without regard to race or religious affiliation. Our aspiration is to aid individuals and families, to lives of greater self-reliance and fulfilment. Through educational, cultural, social, and recreational programs we provide encouragement, tools, opportunities, and support.
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OUR COMMUNITY

The Tyndale St-Georges (TSG) Community Centre in Richmond Square is a beacon of hope for over 2,000 Montrealers. For 75 years our programs have offered a unique opportunity to move toward a fuller life.

The community we serve faces many challenges:

• 40 per cent of the population are recent immigrants and refugees.

• 10,000 people live in Little Burgundy.

• More than 50 per cent are living below the poverty level.

• The unemployment rate is 18 per cent; among youth, it is 33 per cent.

• 57 per cent of all families are on social assistance.

• 40 per cent of families are headed by a single parent.

(Source: Portrait de Quartier, CLSC St-Henri, 1999)

The people who use the services of TSG are mainly members of visible minorities from the Caribbean, Asia, South America and Africa. They are families with young children, new Canadians unfamiliar with the culture and the workplace in our country, and they experience great difficulties in adapting to a new way of life in Montreal. Over the years tens of thousands of young Montrealers have been helped to a better start in life at Tyndale St-Georges. We provide services without regard to race or religious denomination.

TSG's goal is to empower individuals and families to move towards lives of greater self-worth through education in a supportive environment.
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OUR ROLE

The centre offers a comprehensive choice of essential educational services to the community:

LANGUAGE PROGRAM

The Language Training Program, offered in collaboration with Concordia University, provides English language classes, primarily to the immigrant and refugee community in Montreal. Each year, the program attracts more than 600 participants from 90 countries. While the primary goal of this program is to provide quality language instruction, we also help the participants make new friends and facilitate their integration into Canadian society. New classes are continually being added to improve the participants' knowledge and pronunciation. Recently, a new course was introduced to better prepare the
students writing the university entrance exam. This program has grown by 300 students over the last two years, but the resources have remained the same: one full-time staff and 30 volunteer student and retired teachers.

Additional funds are urgently needed to cope with the need for specialized aspects of language construction and to develop more structured approaches for the social integration of immigrants and refugees.

English Language class at Tyndale, 2003 

YOUTH PROGRAMS

• Early childhood education for children under 6 years old.

• After-school programs for children from 6 to 14 years old.

• Cultural and recreational activities for children and teenagers from 6 to 15 years old.

Today over 2,000 people use our services every year.

The programs at Tyndale St-Georges strongly influence the health and safety of the whole community in Little Burgundy.

Tyndale St. George
876 Carre Richmond Square
Montreal, QC H3J 1V7
Tel: (514) 931-6265 Ext. 31
Fax: (514) 931-1343