Catch da Flava Radio May Highlights

From Frankenfish to Robofish! From Newsweek of Obama being the first gay president to Times' Breastfeeding cover of a hot model breastfeeding a 5 year old boy! From Sports to entertainment... Kobe being taken out by Kevin Durant's entourage, while Miley Cyrus claiming that "Sex is magical and cool". We also had updates of the Occupy movements, the EI policy reforms, and Rob Ford and his budget and his weekly weigh in cancellation adventures. These are just a few of the month of May's whackiest topics on our youth radio! Joining us with our youth radio groups from the "CatchdaFlava headquarters" is Jared, Isaac, Omar, Tresvonne, William, Bubba Africa, Nicole, and of course myself, Jerry z! Always blessed with riotous energy and youth wisdom. Come join us at catchdaflava radio at Radio Regent!

jerry z

Boys 2 Men Basketball Diaries

Today was a very productive and fun day for the boys. Teamwork was the theme of today. 8 boys showed up to the group today. Although we thought that it was going to thunderstorm, we planned 4:30 pm to 5:15 pm, for basketball, hoping that the sky would be clear. We were very fortunate that there was no storm, and managed to play some basketball on the basketball court across the street from Regent Park Focus. We managed to play 2 games. Not only did this teach the kids about teamwork, they got some exercise and had fun doing it.

The Regent Park Community Centre across the street was nice enough to lend us their basketball for the boys. During snack time at 5:15 pm, Jerry and James talked to the boys about gang mentality and hip-hop cultures. It was interesting to hear what the boys had to say. Most of them believe that gang violence has really subsided in Regent Park; they thought that they didn't see much gang activities in Regent Park. They also seemed to stress on the importance of the 'no snitching' policy. At the end of the day, we played a game where one balloon was tied to one leg of each person. The point of the game was to pop everybody else's balloon while leaving your own balloon. The person who remains at the end without having his balloon popped got a prized of a bag of candies. This game was supposed to teach the boys how to strategize and make alliances. None of that happened, but it was all in good fun.  Tadios was the only player left.  He took the bag of candies home.  

- James

Boyz 2 Men - "Tough Guise"

Today, those that were in the boys to men program, around 7, went to Duke of York Public School to play a game of tag. The 3 staff members first present included James and Jerry; Raul joined a bit later. It seemed that James was particularly good at this game because of his speed. A life of running away from bullies, and responsibilities certainly paid off. Even though the slides and the structures on the playground were off limits to people aged 12 and over, we went on anyway. We formed two groups, consisting of 4-5 players each; it was good exercise. After a while, we went back to Regent Park Focus to have some snacks. There were tuna fish and turkey sandwiches; ham was avoided because it wasn’t halal. While having snacks, we watched a 15-minute youtube video called "Tough Guise" by Jackson Katz. He talked about the racialization of the masculine imagine in the media, and how couloured men are represented as "overly masculine" to compensate for a lack of privileges.  The video can be found through this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exzMPT4nGI.  Eman was kind enough to burn a copy of it on a DVD so that it could be viewed through the LCD television that was in the lobby. Because Mother’s Day was just around the corner, Jerry decided to teach the boys how to make roses using tissue paper, taper, and some green pipe cleaners. That last for around 20 minutes for most of he boys, while it took over an hour for others.  After the boys were finished making the roses, they were each given a yogurt cone.  We chose yogurt as opposed to ice cream because it was a healthier choice.  At end, there was a guessing game for the amount of gumballs that were in a jar.  The person who guessed closest to the actual amount won the jar of gumballs.

- James 

Diva Girls Friday

Daughter, student, friend, mother, patient and kind were only some of the words that were used by our Diva Girls to describe themselves. In a society where everything is on the go, and there can be so much stress and frustration it’s always nice to take a step back an re-evaluate yourself and your qualities, and that is exactly what this group of young women were able to do. On April 20, the Diva Girls were asked to draw an illustration as they see themselves today. Instantly a group of young artists were born and characters were brought to life. What was most remarkable is that every character was drawn with a smile on their face. They were then asked to write describing words about themselves and where they are in their lives right now. Girls were able to compare their drawings and see that we really aren’t that different from one another. We were all daughters, we all had siblings and we were all currently or had been students. Discussions were raised and we began to find out a little bit more about each other. This activity was taken one step further when the Divas were asked to draw another depiction of themselves, as they envisioned their lives in 25 years. We saw career titles emerge with future doctors and teachers among us. We all saw ourselves as mothers, some with 5 children or more. This is proof about how special our mothers are to us. No one was content with being unemployed or alone; all of these women plan to go to college or university, find a career and be part of loving families. This is testament to the amount of support that these girls are surrounded by. Programs like Diva Girls are necessary, because it is groups like this that strive to ensure that all of these dreams and plans will become a reality.

- Cindy G

Boyz 2 Men Day 4

Today, we had many things planned. We had a trust/obstacle game with the boys. The goal of the game is that the boys are supposed to go around obstacles with the instructions of their team members and obtain an item. If the participant were to touch any of the obstacles, he would have to start all over again. It became confusing when the boys were unsatisfied with the teams that were chosen. We didn’t allow them to pick their own teams because that would lead to some of the participants being left out. Jerry and I decided that we should talk to the kids about the topic of bullying. This was quite an interesting topic; first, we asked the boys what forms of bullying there were. We came to agree that there was physical bullying such as punching and kicking. There was a contemporary form of bullying called cyber bullying. It included the use of offensive remarks on web sites such as facebook, twitter, or the use of text messages. It’s remarkable that technology can bring such terrible side effects. It was kind of hard to get the idea through with some of the boys because some of the boys may be bullies, themselves. We talked about the tactics in which bullying could be avoided. We came up with the idea of avoidance, involvement of a third party, or a guidance councilor. As expected, some of the boys came up with idea of ‘bullying the bully’ into submission. Such tangential responses seem to lead the group off topic and restlessness follows. Despite the problems that we had, we were able to do a debriefing. Most of the boys retained much of the information taught to them during the program. Unfortunately, the performer that we were supposed to have would not be performing at a later time because we have other topics on our agenda.

-  James