"We received so much valuable feedback from you that day and we are doing our best to incorporate that into our practices as an organization," says Liz Forsberg, managing director at Art Starts, about the importance of a Young Leaders field trip in Toronto.
Art Starts brings together residents from the multicultural neighborhoods of Toronto for art projects and thus helps create a shared sense of identity. Together with Art Starts, the residents work on solutions to the problems of their respective neighborhoods. Art Starts collaborates closely with professional artists, frequently giving disadvantaged residents their first exposure to art.
During the 14th Transatlantic Forum in 2009, young leaders from Germany, Canada, and the United States visited the Glendower Mosaic, an Art Starts projects in the Glendower neighborhood. Young Leaders and representatives of Art Starts discussed the challenges facing the organization and provided tips and recommendations, which Art Starts now tries to incorporate and implement into its work. Young Leader Naki Osutei, project head of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, has supported Art Starts since this field trip by consulting with the organization to find new funders.
The commitment of Art Starts impressed and inspired the TAF participants, including Özcan Mutlu, education policy spokesman of the German Green Party in the Berlin House of Representatives, and Norbert Bisky, one of the best-known contemporary German painters. Since 2009, Mutlu and Bisky have jointly developed the "Art@School" initiative in the Neukölln neighborhood of Berlin. Their "Art@School" project idea was an award winner at the 2009 Young Leaders Ideas Competition.

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