Cliff Ledwos

Incorporated over 35 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, providing links, conducting research and building 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 bridge 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 those who have been have been made vulnerable by systemic barriers and poverty. 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.