The Time To Dream Foundation is a foundation created by Akim Aliu.

At this time, the Time to Dream Foundation aims to make youth sports, including the game of hockey, more diverse, inclusive, affordable and accessible to all, regardless of race, gender and socioeconomic background. Additionally, Time to Dream will strongly focus on promoting equality and tolerance not only within sports, but also within society, while advocating for civil rights and fairness. By removing barriers to participation, Time to Dream leverages the sporting experience to help youth achieve success in life.

To realize this mission, Time to Dream works with strategic partners to develop and implement programs to help youth feel inclusive by providing the moral, financial and hands on training to help them reach their ultimate potential in sports and all walks of life.

April 24, 1989: The world welcomes the quiet, wise beyond his years warrior Akim “The Dream” Aliu. A childhood marked by welfare and scrappy surviving at best, with stints in Nigeria, Soviet Union to Canada, struggling to make ends meet while enduring endless racial prejudice and tension. But Akim didn’t know any other way; resiliency, drive and hopeful horizons were within his blood from day one, as if life was preparing his sails to weather many storms ahead. And that he did, with a career that has thrown just about everything his way: hazing, bullying, inequitable access, and most recently - public shunning, by the very industry he loved most.

But “victim” he is not, as his purpose lies in much bigger prerogatives. To unmask the mysteries, break through the barriers and transform the hockey culture into what it was always meant to be.

If you would like to hear Akim's full story, please check out our "MEET AKIM" page!