Friends in Toronto Community Services (FITCS) has launched the Keep Six Ambassadors Program, a federally funded, five-year initiative rooted in over two decades of community work in Toronto's Jane and Finch neighbourhood. Founded by Antonius Clarke, who started the organization at just seventeen, FITCS uses mentorship, restorative justice, and creative expression to steer at-risk youth away from gang involvement and toward leadership. The program marks FITCS's 20th anniversary of grassroots impact.
There is a particular kind of dedication that doesn't come from a job description. It comes from lived experience, from watching the neighbourhood you grew up in absorb one blow after another, and deciding that someone has to do something about it. For Antonius Clarke, that decision happened at seventeen. Standing in Jane and Finch, a community too often framed by headlines rather than its people, Clarke made a choice that would define the next two decades of his life. He founded Friends in Toronto Community Services (FITCS), and he never looked back.
Now, twenty years later, Clarke and FITCS are launching their most ambitious undertaking yet. The Keep Six Ambassadors Program is a federally funded, five-year community safety and youth development initiative designed to reach young people at risk of gang involvement or contact with the justice system. It builds on everything FITCS has learned, built, and fought for since the early 2000s, offering a comprehensive model that weaves together mentorship, restorative justice, creative expression, and arts-based community engagement.
A program built from the ground up
The name itself carries meaning. "Keep six" is street vernacular for staying alert, watching out for one another. As a program title, it reframes that awareness, turning a defensive instinct into something proactive and community-building. Participants are trained as Keep Six Ambassadors, gaining practical skills in community leadership, peer mentorship, conflict resolution, and civic engagement. The goal is to develop the next generation of changemakers, young people who have been shaped by hard circumstances and are now equipped to reshape them.
The initiative is grounded in principles of anti-racism, cultural identity, and community healing. Rather than treating at-risk youth as problems to be managed, the program treats them as assets to be developed. That philosophy runs through everything FITCS does.
Two decades, thousands of lives
Clarke's track record speaks for itself. Under his leadership, FITCS has delivered culturally informed, healing-centred programming to thousands of individuals and families across the Greater Toronto Area. The organization's services are wide-ranging and deeply practical.
FITCS currently offers:
- Youth mentorship and leadership development, pairing young people with trusted community guides
- Family engagement and wraparound case management, addressing the full picture of a family's needs
- Re-entry and reintegration support, for individuals transitioning out of the justice system
- Restorative justice and healing circles, drawing on both Western and Indigenous frameworks to address harm
- Gang prevention and violence reduction programming, with proven results in some of Toronto's most affected neighbourhoods
One of FITCS's signature initiatives, the Circle of Change program, applies restorative justice principles drawn from Indigenous traditions to support youth with multiple interactions with the criminal justice system. Through individual treatment plans, one-on-one counselling, mentorship, and advocacy, the program has helped more than 200 young people have their charges withdrawn or reduced. That is not an abstract statistic. Those are 200 futures redirected.
Building with the community, not just for it
What distinguishes FITCS from many organizations doing similar work is the depth of its community integration. Clarke and his team, including Youth Ambassadors Dwayne W., Dameon D., Keishawn, Seikou, and a network of dedicated volunteers, are embedded in the communities they serve. They are present. Consistent. Known.
FITCS played a key role in organizing the da6 Walk Against Violence in Jane and Finch, bringing together local businesses, community groups, elected officials, and city leadership around a shared commitment to collaboration. The event drew participation from the mayor's office, members of parliament, and the Toronto Police Chief, reflecting the kind of cross-sector mobilization that Clarke has always understood to be necessary. Real change, he knows, requires many hands.
The organization has also worked alongside city-wide initiatives, including the Toronto Strong Neighbourhood Strategy and the Jane and Finch Crisis Response Network. These partnerships are deliberate. FITCS has always known that sustainable community safety is collective work.
A founder who became a symbol
Clarke's reputation extends well beyond Jane and Finch. He is the recipient of the Lincoln Alexander Award, one of Ontario's most prestigious honours for young people who have demonstrated exemplary leadership in combating racism, and the Volunteer Toronto Legacy Award. These are recognitions of a life spent in service and of the measurable difference it has made.
His approach to this work is not transactional. It is vocational. As Clarke himself has said: "Without volunteers, nothing will get done out of love. Only as volunteers can we share in that priceless work of love." That ethos runs through the entire FITCS model, and it will be at the centre of the Keep Six Ambassadors Program.
How the program works
The Keep Six Ambassadors Program is designed to engage youth and young adults through multiple entry points. Participants are supported across several interconnected streams:
- Ambassador development: Training in leadership, peer mentorship, conflict resolution, and civic engagement
- Restorative justice practices: Healing circles and culturally grounded approaches to addressing harm
- Creative expression and arts engagement: Using artistic practice as a vehicle for identity, processing, and community connection
- Anti-racism education and cultural identity work: Building a sense of self and belonging as a protective factor against involvement in violence
The program actively seeks partnerships with community organizations, schools, educational institutions, youth workers, arts and cultural groups, justice and public safety partners, and local businesses. The vision is collaborative by design. No single organization can do this work alone, and FITCS has always understood that.
Roots and reach
The launch of the Keep Six Ambassadors Program coincides with FITCS marking its 20th year of community service. It is a milestone that Clarke and his team are honouring, not by celebrating what has been accomplished, but by committing to what comes next. The program represents the next phase of the journey, as FITCS has said publicly, an evolution rooted in everything that came before.
Where the village goes from here
Twenty years ago, a seventeen-year-old from Jane and Finch decided his community deserved better. He built something from that conviction, piece by piece, partnership by partnership, young person by young person. The Keep Six Ambassadors Program is the latest chapter in that story, and it is one of the most significant yet.
The program offers something rare in the landscape of community safety work: a model that is simultaneously evidence-based and deeply human. It draws from two decades of direct experience, from healing circles and justice work, from walks against violence and circles of change, from a founder who never treated this as a career but always as a calling.
For the young people of Jane and Finch and communities like it across Toronto, the Ambassadors Program is an open door. For potential partners, funders, mentors, and volunteers, it is an invitation to be part of something that has already proven it works. The village is showing up. The question is, who else will join?
To learn more about the Keep Six Ambassadors Program or to get involved, contact FITCS directly:
- Email:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - Phone: 647-915-3106
- Website: fitcs.ca
- Address: 40 Carl Hall Rd., Unit D035, Toronto, Ontario, M3K 2C1
