Regent Park Focus

Like all of our previous Last Fridays' events, Friday February 26th held in honor of Black History Month, was spectacular. The event was held at the Daniel's Presentation Centre. We had some new and some familiar faces in the crowd which made a great audience. This month we filled our tummies with Jerk chicken and rice and more performers than usual. The evening started with the Regent Park House Band da Youngstas. They were followed by Da Newz poetry of Kim Miller and traditional African drumming by three members of Matadi, a Toronto based drumming collective. Toronto artist's Ekko Effect livened up the crowd with some energy filled rapping. He was followed by rap artist Kris P. The first half of the evening was brought to a close by the soulful R&B singing of Toronto artist Steve J'lin, In the second half of the evening, Raswell and Ekow of the band Subnodes, reignited the crowd with their unique brand of progressive hiphop. The multi-talented duo's perform...

This is Saeema, Abdul and Abdi from RPTV. Today we completed one script out of five for our 5-part video. With the help of our mighty leader Adonis, along with his dramatic and effective role-playing, we were able to combine our efforts, allowing us to come one step closer to finalizing our script. We personally think that that everyone’s participation as a whole gave us very positive results. The first thing we did was getting into the minds of our characters. We did this so that we could all come up with dialogue that was in-character and appropriate. Secondly, we came up with lines, along with actions for our script. This was a simple task now that we had all gotten into character! Lastly, we got someone to type everything up so that our precious ideas were not lost. Keep checking our blog to see our progress.

Regent Park Focus Photography Studio's very own William Kuan was one of ten finalist in the “Our City, Our Stories” photography contest. The contest was aimed at building youth skills in the digital arts, visual storytelling, self expression, engagement and leadership in their communities. Program sessions took place in five different communities across Toronto including Jane & Finch, Scarborough, Rexdale, Etobicoke and our very own Regent Park. The 10-week fall program at Regent Park took place after-school every Wednesday at the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre. William used his friend Tresvonne Rose-Wilson as his photography subject. This is what William said about his photo project: “When I was creating this photo story, I was just trying to have fun. That’s it. Every time I took a picture of my good friend Tresvonne Rose-Wilson, I never had any thoughts. I was just being myself and he was being himself. I took photos of Tresvonne doing the things that he likes to ...

Our next radio show scheduled for February 23, 2010 will be based on the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver. We will start with a commentary on the opening ceremony of the Olympic games when athletes, Steve Nash, Wayne Gretzky lit up the cauldron to start the games. Our main topic for the radio show will be on Canada's aspiration to get a gold medal in both the men's and women's hockey. Abdi, a new member of our radio collective, will talk about the women side of Olympic hockey. While Ruhul (me) will talk about the men side of Olympic hockey and the rivalry Canada and Russia. We both think that it will be a great show. Members of the radio show: Ruhul Miah and Abdi Adow Listen Now!

Hello, my name is Waqar. I'm a participant in the RPTV video program at Regent Park Focus. We are still editing our video on meaningful youth employment, a project that we began as part of the fall session. See our previous blogs on RPTV if you want more information. As part of the winter session, in early January we began working on a "youth resilency" project with the city. This project involved interviewing sixteen youth from four different areas of the city about the factors that lead to resilient youth. Seema and Emmanuel did most of the editing for the video. The video was shown at a conference on resilency held on January 25 at Metro Hall. During this week's session of RPTV, we continued brainstorming story ideas for our next video. Our next video will be a series of five different stories of people living in an apartment complex in Regent Park. So far we have about 4 stories. So this week we all participated in a role playing game to help us come up with dial...

The February 16, 2010 Catch da Flava radio show was hosted by Shamina, Rima and Lupa. Our featured guest was Farrah from Aqsazine. She talked about the Aqsazine and issues around Muslim identity particularly for young girls. We also talked about Muslims in the media and and how youth can use zines as a voice/form of social action.

Amer, bipu and I(Ishtique) was on the radio show on feb 9th, 2010. We started the show with two youth guests from Toronto Community Housing, Tarak and Yousuf. They talked about the youth tenant elections scheduled for April 8, 2010. Our main topic was on the concept of prank calls. We discussed issues like why youth decides to make prank calls and weather they know their limit or not. We also talked about the impact it has on strangers and friends. We talked about our personal experiences dealing with prank calls and making them. The last 6 minutes of the show was devoted towards the Olympics and how pumped up people are. and our two guests Tarak and Yusuf talked about the youth elections in regent park. Listen Now!

On Tuesday, February 2, Glen Murray, the Liberal Candidate in the February 4 provincial by-election in the riding of Toronto Centre-Rosedale (which includes Regent Park) paid a visit to Regent Park Focus and was interviewed live by Catch da Flava Radio correspondents Bipu, Amer, and Ishtiaque. Mr. Murray is no stranger to the political scene, having served as mayor of Winnipeg for many years. A number of issues of particular importance to residents of the Park were discussed including the ongoing revitalization of Regent Park. He expressed a strong commitment to improving the affordable housing situation in the area. He also stressed the importance of arts and culture as a means of building strong communities and pointed to specific measures that are taking into account the ethnic diversity in Regent Park. Murray also discussed his belief that public input will play a large part in the political decision making process if he is elected. The interview aired later that evening on ...

This month’s Last Friday event, which took place January 29, featured a special guest appearance by Cathy Crowe, the NDP candidate in the February 4 provincial by-election in the riding of Toronto Centre-Rosedale. She was interviewed live in front of our Last Friday guests by William of Catch da Flava Radio who stepped up on very short notice (and did an awesome job.) The interview will be aired on this upcoming radio show. Ms. Crowe is a “street nurse” who has been offering front-line services and advocacy on behalf of Toronto’s homeless for many years. She has lived and worked in Regent Park for the last 25 years so she is no stranger to the challenges the neighbourhood faces. She is seeking office because after a long career dealing with the symptoms of poverty and homelessness, she wants to work towards finding solutions. Her decision to run at the provincial level was based on the fact that Queen's Park controls the money for social services and she is particularily dismay...

January the 29th Last Fridays' was held on site at Regent Park Focus. The evening was filled with great entertainment and excitement. Things started out slow but as the night progressed things started to pick up. The house band (Da Youngsta) opened up the night with the Bangles, Manic Monday. We heard great vocals from Dominique Lorde who bought down the house with a redition of Amazing Grace. Chadene Dyer touched us with her poem on life. During a short food break we heard from NDP candidate Cathy Crowe who was interviewed by Catch da Flava radio member William. Afterwards we give it up to Mark Hanes whose political humorous songs and innovative playing on the synthesizer got the crowd laughing. Steve J’lin blew the crowd away with his great performance singing songs like Blame it on the alcohol. While the crowd was being entertained by these great performers, they were munching down on tasty Jerk chicken, coleslaw, salad, plantain provided by Ritz a Caribbean restaurant. Over...

Today our January 26th radio show we explored issues of eating habits and how diets have been changing over the years. Sabbir and Thisaan discussed the fact that a lot of teens don't have healthy eating habits and how this problem can affect you later in life. This radio show was beneficial to us as we learned many new facts about healthy eating and get us to reconsider consuming fast food. Later in the radio show we discussed the Regent Park Redevelopment. Most of our discussion focused on the park area. We aired a pre-produced radio piece produced by Ryan. In the piece Ryan interviewed planners involved with designing the park. After the piece aired we discussed it. It was a great radio show. Listen Here!

David, Shahina and Nicholas talked about the earthquake in Haiti on the January 19 radio show. We talked about what the Canadian and American government are doing to help and where people can donate. As part of our research Nicholas read a document over the radio on how the Americans and France made Haiti pay billions of dollars to France after the country gained it's freedom and how this contributed to the country's poverty. Afterwards Abdulkarim continued the discussion by talking about the impact of the earthquake. This was David and Nicholas first radio show and we enjoyed it. By Nicholas and David. Listen Here!

Our show on January 12th 2010, was about Global Warming. My radio members were Rima, Saad, Atharul and my self Lupa. We basically talked about the effects and causes of Global warming and how we can prevent it from happening. We talked about how the most of the causes of global warming is happening because of the green house gases produced in developed country and the people who are suffering from this are the people in developing countries. Also we talked about the effect it has on agriculture and it is preventing plant growth. Following our radio segment, Kelvin and Ryan hosted a show on the prorogue of the Parliament by the Harper government. Essentially they shut down the government so that they can avoid a parliament inquiry on allegations that the government knew about the torturing of Afghanistan prisoners. Is this really legal? Is it democratic? Is it ethical? I think this is more questions than we have answers. By Rima. Listen Here!

Our Tuesday January 5th radio show that Amer, Ishtiaque and Bipu hosted began with a discussion of current events. Following this we dealt with the topic of 2012 – is it the end of the world?” We also talked about the movie I Am Legend, a 2007 science fiction starring Will Smith about a plague that kills off most of humanity and its relationship to H1N1. We discussed our various opinions and ideas relating to the topic. We found tonight’s show very enjoyable and easy because we were organized and prepared for it. We can’t wait for our next show! Listen Here!

Our radio show was on December 29, 2009 was on parent relationships. The show was hosted by Shamiley, Mohammed and Thisaan. The experience of been on the radio show was worth while, as we have gained more experience and feel more comfortable. Our research on this topic has urged us to learn more and to reflect on our own personal issues that revolve around this topic. By doing so we hope to find ways to mend our relationships with our parents and to help to become strong families. During the radio show its self, we got deeper into the topics which ended up in us knowing and informing others about this topic. By me Mohammed.

Our December 22, 2009 radio show was based on the holidays mainly Christmas. The radio show was hosted by Thisaan, Rubi and Sabbir. We touched upon consumerism and personal relationships and how the holidays effects how you feel. We had fun reading Christmas poems. We really enjoyed the radio show because we got to talk about the holidays when everyone is happy. Listen Here!

Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre had the privilege of co-ordinating our own workshop for the Our City Our Stories – powered by Canon urban youth photography contest. The workshop was held between October 22nd and December 14th, 2009 with two-hour sessions organized and run by photographer Nick Kozak. The 8 sessions covered three essential parts to documentary photography; study, shooting, and editing. Study Students spent several sessions observing and giving feedback on examples of documentary photography presented by the instructor. Slideshows were watched from the famous Mediastorm multimedia website, news photographs were viewed on Reuters and other news outlets. Students also signed up for and viewed projects and individual photos on the popular photo sharing site Flickr. The youth were given minimal instructions on how to ‘read’ photographs and what makes a strong photograph. Instead, through viewing examples students acquired basic knowledge for themes and composition. ...

Last fall Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre coordinated a workshop for young girls in the Regent Park area. The workshop was held between October 21st and December 9th, 2009 with two-hour sessions organized and run by photographer Nick Kozak. The sessions covered three essential parts to documentary photography; study, shooting, and editing. Study Students were shown examples of documentary photography on several websites including Mediastorm.org and Flickr.com as well as Reuters.com. It was essential that the girls gain a grasp for what documentary photography is about and what makes good composition and good story-telling before sending them off to shoot their own photos. Shooting After viewing photography during several Wednesday sessions and learning a bit about how to use the Fujifilm cameras, the instructor went out with the girls to photograph in the vicinity. The students were very enthusiastic and came back with some good material to begin editing with. The youth were ...

On Tuesday December 15th the Catchdaflava radio show was hosted by Tazim, Abdulkarim and Azam. Our group spoke about various events that occurred over the year of 2009. We discussed the impact of these events, and how they relate to the youth of Regent Park in particular. We had an insightful talk on topics such as the Gaza conflict, Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, the war in Sri Lanka and the recent scandal involving Tiger Woods. We questioned the way the media and government highlighted and dealt with these occurrences. All of us had critical views on each of the topics discussed, and were deeply engaged in the show. However, for times sake, we had to cut it short. Be sure to tune in next time! - Abdulkarim, Tazim and Azam Listen Here!

Starting October, Regent Park Focus established a children's Comic Book Program at Lord Dufferin School and began engaging kids in a collective creation of a comic book. The purpose of this club was to use the diverse artistic skills of the children, combining them to create a graphic book of a mixed genre. During the first few meetings of the club, the children focused on developing characters, and outlining their skills and character traits. These details manifested themselves into a dense story, which was drawn and written as it was being thought of. The drawings were put together by the group instructor, Dasha Yarova. Some of the characters were created by the group’s two volunteers, who also organized and directed the children. There were five children in the group, ages ranging from five to seven. Overall, the comic book club turned out to be successful, as the children were able to see the book they have created, and feel the power in their artistic hands to create a tangi...

I'm apart of Diva Girls group held each Friday at Regent Park Focus. The group is dedicated to bringing the girls in the community together. In the past few months we've worked on a variety of things. Myia and Pat are the instructors but not too long ago we got a new person on the Girl's group team. Her name is Emmie and so far she has organized a lot of fun art activities for us. One project she made us do was collages and paintings. We were asked to to incorporate the pressure girls our age have to deal with into our art. This includes the pressure in looking a certain way, dressing a certain way, and just how much the media plays on our insecurities. Our collages were filled with the women and material objects society seems to think beautiful. A few weeks ago we planted tulips with Pink Tulips, which was very enjoyable for myself and the other participants. We learned a whole lot about these flowers; like that tulips like to freeze in the ground. Hopefully they'll t...

The Long running Divas Girls Group Program at Regent Park Focus has been incredibly successful. The program has given girls living in the community a place to socialize and explore their identities as racialized, young women soon to be entering the challenging world of teenagehood. In October, in an effort to meet the needs of more young women in the community, the program was expanded to two local schools. On Wednesdays the program is held at Regent Park Duke of York School. On Thursdays the program is held at Lord Dufferin. Both programs are coordinated by Emmie Carr, a Toronto artist. She is assisted by three York University teacher candidates, Kavita Persand, Marie Lee and Sara Cluer. There has been many wonderful and meaningful creative exchanges between young women in the program and the facilitators. Some of the issues that have being tackled were: self-esteem, body image, communication, and positive role models. One activity, led by Kavita, involved asking the girls who thei...

If you happen to stroll down the second floor hallway of Sprucecourt Jr. School you would be greeted with all sorts of posters, messages, pamphlets, illustrations and type written stories all on the theme of drugs. That’s because today is the judging of the Regent Park Focus Drug Awareness Classroom Door and Poster Competition and students were anxious to exhibit their work. The judging of posters concludes three weeks of educational drug awareness activities including a school assembly with panel speakers, a video screening, the creation of audio public service announcements and of course the making of posters and other art work illustrating the negative effects of drugs. Our panel of esteem judges for the day was; Barb Macpherson, representing Toronto Public Health; Lorna Blake, a member of the Regent Park Focus Advisory Committee; Brenda and Rainbow Bear from Rainbow Cinema; and two officers from 51 Division of the Metropolitan Toronto Police. The judges visited each of the particip...

We did a radio show on the Pan American Games on Tuesday December 8, 2009. We didn’t have any guests on the radio show. We talked about the Pan Am games coming to Toronto in 2015, the construction of the new facilities for the event, how the event is a waste of money costing Toronto 1.3 billion dollars. The challenges for the radio show was making up the questions. We had to take a music break so we can provide the questions for the show. And also, there was a bit of delay due to the other radio show and also we couldn’t get into the station. By Ruhul Miah, Athrul Khan, and Saad Ahmed Listen Here!

Our December 1, 2009 radio show was about domestic violence. Did you know that Children under age five are more likely to live in a household where domestic violence occurs than are children in any other age category? Were you aware that children living with domestic violence are at risk for increased emotional and behavioral problems. In our radio show we explained what domestic violence is and discussed some of the causes. We also gave examples of where people can go for help. In the second part of our show we talked about the negatives of the price of TTC tickets increases. Some difficulties we had was we had to come up with things on the spot. For next time we will make sure we have extra words to talk. By Sabbir, Thisaan and Mohammed: Listen Here!

The Drug Awareness Classroom Door and Poster Contest is in full swing. The contest was announced at an assembly held a week earlier as part of the Regent Park Focus Drug Awareness Contest. Students are currently working with their classmates to research information on drugs and to design their classroom doors and hallways with creative posters and messages about the negative effects of drug use. The judging is to take place on the morning of December 10, 2009. As part of the Drug Awareness Program several classes were invited to take part in creating audio public services announcements (PSAs)on drugs. To inspire them, on November 19th, Regent Park Focus staff held a workshop at the school on making PSAs. At the workshop students watched and listened to videos and radio drug awareness PSA’s produced by Regent Park Focus in the past. After a short discussion about all the PSAs that were presented, students went back to their classes to research and write their own PSA scripts. On Decemb...

Each year Regent Park Focus organizes a Drug Awareness Program in partnership with one or more local schools. The goal of the program is to engage students in activities that increase their awareness about drugs. This year Regent Park Focus partnered with Sprucecourt Jr. Public School to put on three weeks of events where students could explore the implications of drug use and then share what they learned to others through art, music, drama and the creation of radio public service announcements. The following is a description of the kick off event. To kick-off the Drug Awareness Program at Sprucecourt school an assembly was held for Grade 4, 5 and 6 classes. The assembly took place on November 17, 2009 and it started off with a demonstration of break dancing by Lady Noize, a Toronto break dancer. Lady Noize engaged the audience in the importance of staying healthy by getting students to “flaunt their stuff” and get up to dance. After the dancing, three great guest speakers came up to...

Last Fridays’ is an evening of socializing and song held on the last Friday of each month typically between the months of November to June. Presented by the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre the event is an opportunity for the Regent Park Focus house band, the Youngstas, to horn their skills jamming with professional artists and performing in front of a live audience. November’s Last Friday s’ event was held at the Daniel’s Presentation Centre on November 27th. Backed up by the Regent Park Focus House Band, the event began with the lyrical rhymes of Toronto Hip Hop artist Mind Bender. Afterwards, the Youngstas performed a set of their own. Following the Youngstas, singer songwriter ? performed. She delighted the children in the audience with a number of songs that the audience were encouraged to sing along to. The featured artist of the night was singer songwriter Marnie Levitt. Marnie, no stranger to Last Friday,entertained the audience of 30 people with soulful folk music. ...

Welcome to week 7 of our RPTV video production on Meaning Youth Employment. We have been meeting every Tuesday at 4:00pm at Regent Park Focus. After putting our heads together and deciding that the theme of our short film is young people and the work force, we began the real work of producing a film. This work consisted of character development and script-building, discussing the setting and of course…a camera workshop! The group will be filming, editing, acting in and producing this film. For some members, this is their first time being involved with a program such as this one and others are returning members. So far, the chemistry between the youth has been great in terms of creating based on everyone’s ideas. It is important to include everyone’s input when planning a script as well as during the rest of the film-making process. All members have equal say and that is one of the many great things about this program. We’ll keep you posted. Until next time, RPTV

Our radio on November 24, 2009 was on stereotypes. Ishtiaque, Bipu and Amer talked about South Asian and Asian stereotypes and the impact that these stereotypes have on people. We also talked about the pros and cons of Facebook. Our radio show was a breeze and we had no problems. We enjoyed every minute. Listen Here!

On Tuesday November the 17th Catch da Flava radio invited guests Emma Mcilveen, the founder of the Charlie’s Freewheels organization along with Shah Mohamed, a mechanic volunteer with the program. We discovered that the Freewheels program ran through the summer and centered around empowering a group of 11 youth predominantly from the Regent Park community, with bicycle mechanical skills. The youth met twice a week, and learned how to fix, repair and maintain bicycles. After interviewing our guests on the Freewheels program, we moved on to tie in our interview with the social and environmental impact of bicycles in this day and age. We briefly discussed biking to school and work and compared it to other forms of transport such as public transit, mentioning the TTC fare hike that occurred over the past week. The show was insightful and we as hosts, learned more about bicycles and the positive impact that they can have in today’s society and environment. By Abdulkarim, Azam and Tazim List...

Our the radio show on November 10, 2009 was basically about H1N1. We (Atharul, Ruhul, Rima and Saad)were interviewed by the host of the show Shamina. Some of the questions we were asked were how we as youth living in Regent Park feel about this flu? Another question that arose was whether the doctors or medical care establishment taking the H1N1 as serious as it is? Yes there is the flu shot, but not everyone is taking it and there isn't even that many vaccines available. It is still pretty easy to get the flu because there isn't much protection at school. All we have is the hand sanitizer and that is not enough to stop this H1N1 from spreading. In our opinion, the government should take our health more seriously. Listen Here!

On our November 3, 2009 radio show, the Beautiful City campaign was talked about. The Beautiful City campaign is against all the corporate billboard advertisements that are all around the city. The campaign wants the city to tax the corporations because the advertisements are not beneficial to the public. The funds that will be raised through the taxes will be used to fund artist and art projects around the city. This was the first time hosting a radio show for most of the members in our group. There were some technical difficulties as we could not hear our guest over the phone. This meant that we had to host the radio show by ourselves. I think we did a great job. Sabbir, Jahid, Onik

Our experience with Catch da Flava Radio was one to remember. We hosted the October 27 radio show. Talking about teen depression has made us more aware of how much it affects you and the people around you. We also realized that there are many organizations and services to help us. Preparing for the show had it's highs and lows. One of our most promising moments were coming together with a lot of research. Unfortunately we had a nervous breakdown just before our show. But all in all the experience was enjoyable and we would love to do many more shows. The October 27 Catch da Flava Radio show on Teenage Depression was hosted by Tagnim, Rubi, Tanjina and Tamin. Listen Here!

Our October 13, 2009 radio show was on food security. The radio show provided an insight into the upcoming Catch da Flava magazine issue. The magazine features foods from different cultures and articles on healthy eating. We used pieces from our magazine to talk about over the radio. One of the pieces was on Junk food and whether or not it should be banned in schools. After a debate on this, we talked about Nobel Peace Prize winner, U.S President Barrack Obama and whether or not he deserved it. By Azam, Tazim and Abdul Karim.

As part of its profile of various neighborhoods in Toronto, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC)came down to Regent Park on October 29 to do a radio show on the revitalization process. Specifically the radio show focused on how it would effect the youth. Regent Park Focus was asked by CBC to participate in producing our own radio broadcast and myself and fellow youth discussed the revitalization from a youth perspective. A group of us including myself were also invited to do a live panel discussion speaking on various issues including "mixed -income housing", "negative stereotypes" and people's expectation on the revitalization of Regent Park. Overall my participation on the radio show was an awesome experience and I enjoyed working with Canada's largest media corporation! By Onik Khan

On tonight's Catch da Flava radio show we talked about the proposed banning of the Niqab or Burqa. The Niqab is a gown-like garment that covers the head. The radio show focused on how Muslims felt about the issue. We examined some facts that showed that the Niqab is a part of Islam. Tarak Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress opposes it. Some of the challenges that we faced when producing the show was we didn't have enough information. Some of the questions and answers had to be improvised during the show. Oh well that's what talk radio is about sometimes. The October 20, 2009 Catch da Flava radio show on Banning the Burqa was hosted by Amer, Bipu and Ishtiaque. Listen Here!

Summer Photography: Week 6 We started week six of the photography program with the youth from k-club by editing photos in the computer lab that we had taken last week. As the summer program was coming to an end we went out and shot lots of photos of Regent Park. The youth got some really good final project shots including a family outside their home with a “Think about the children” sign in their front window. The last part of week six was spent on going through and editing photos in Lightroom. To start week six with Dixon hall we talked about what in Regent Park we hadn’t yet photographed. We talked about each kids best photos, in relation to interest of subject, composition and lighting. Last, the kids went out and shot in two separate groups and came back and uploaded their photos onto the computers. The Focus Girls Group started by uploading the photos they had taken the last couple of weeks. They got some really good shots of their family that could definately be used for the fina...

Week Three of the Photography Summer Program: To start week three of the summer photography program we worked with the K-club youth to encourage them to start finalizing their project ideas. The youth started to filter out some ideas that were not as strong or projects that would be more difficult to complete. In week three the youth were introduced to Lightroom, a photography program they would be using to view, choose, and edit their strongest photos. On the computers the youth were showed how to import photos from their cameras into Lightroom and learned about folders, naming, filtering, tags and exporting. Last, the youth were taught how to edit their photos in Lightroom using basic adjustment controls like exposure, clarity, saturation, vibrance, blacks, and contrast. The youth then taught their peers who had missed last day’s workshop everything they learned about importing and editing in Lightroom. This exercise was related back to the important life skill of teamwork and leade...

Hello, its Lupaa and Rimma we came down to focus today to act in a film project about new immigrants and their experience at an bank. I (Rimma) played the part of a bank teller whom had a hard time understanding the immigrants language. The film focuses on the struggles between the new immigrant customer and the teller. Lupaa: it was an awesome experience we had so much fun and i was the janitor in the film, lol. My character basically and i was very proud of that. Hi, my name is Usman Khan. I think this PSA project is a giving youth a great opportunity to learn about filming,editing and developing films. It gives us a chance to show off our talent and skills. Along with that, we get to learn how to use professional cameras and equipment. Last week, we learned about the equipment required to shoot a film and came up with an idea for our film. Today, we got to decide on the characters and their names. This project is really fun and gives an opportunity to do something exciting indoors ...

Summer Video Program Week 1 and 2 During the past two weeks in the video program we have been working with youth from K-club, Focus Youth, SEAS, Dixon Hall, and Diva Girls Group. The first few days we spend time teaching the youths how to handle a video camera. They also learned all the camera shots and angles to make their final video interesting. The end project for all these youths is to come up with a PSA, so to give them ideas we watched PSAs from the previous years. After watching videos, as a group we brainstormed ideas of all the possible topics to make a video about. Then we asked the youth to make their own story that we discussed as a group. We always came across very good story ideas so we worked together and used all the good ideas to come up with one great story. We see K-Club youths three times a week so they are a little ahead with their PSAs. They have already completed their story boards and they have been doing roll playing so they can get use to being in front of th...

Week Two of the Photography Summer Program: In week two of the summer program we worked with K-club (ages 11 and up), SEAS (ages 15-17) and Girls group (ages 9-14.) In the girls group we started by introducing each other and talking about the final project we would be working towards. As a group we looked at some photography projects relating to the woman's body image. The girls brainstormed some ideas for final projects of their own and eventually settled on the topic of “Family.” We did an activity outside, shooting specifically focusing on composition and lighting. We then came back inside and took a look at some of the photos the girls had taken and talked about each of them in relation to lighting and composition. We related this activity back to the importance of goal setting. With SEAS and K-club, we started week two by sharing some of the project ideas they had thought of over the weekend and we talked about what the purpose of documentary photography is. We contin...

In week one of the summer program we met with the K-club (ages 11 and up) and SEAS Youth (ages 15-17) who would be participating in the photography workshop for the next 7 weeks. We did introductions and learned about their knowledge and experience with photography. We then introduced the course and discussed the final project we would be working towards. We talked about what different kinds of photography there are and learned more specifically about photojournalism and documentary photography. We looked at some news pages on the net and talked about what kind of still images you see in the news. Each youth was assigned to go onto flikr.com and look through some photos, picking their favourites and showing the rest of the group. We then looked through everyone’s choices and talked about what we liked about each of them. As a group we looked through some multimedia projects, photo essays and slideshows on mediastorm.org and a couple other internet sites. The youth looked through some N...

In the first week of summer programming we had some youths from K-club in the studio learning how to make beats by using software called Reason. The youths were shown some basic steps in making an instrumental beat, time structure/count and how to use different devices for various sounds. The following week we had both youths from SEAS and from K-club becoming more familiar with making beats or tracks using the software while experimenting with the keyboards. We also have been integrating some discussions around life skills (decision making, team building, goal setting, ethics and collaboration). This week the youths are continuing to work on their beats in order to complete their tracks as a final project for the summer program. Some youth have been working on lyrics as well, while exploring collaboration possibilities with other youth artists/beat makers. We have been encouraging youth to bring instruments from home in order to record their own music into the beat making software, th...

This past week the girls group headed to Guelph for a three day retreat to celebrate the end of this year’s program. It rained almost the entire time, but we still managed to have a great time! For many of the girls it was the first time they had been out of the city. They were excited to go canoeing, take part in a scavenger hunt and spend time in the conservation area exploring and drawing in their sketch books. Because of the rain we also came up with lots of creative ways to have fun inside. We painted tote bags, learned to cook lots of delicious food, and put on a “Kids Canadian Idol” show. The girls all said they wished the trip could have been longer and were already planning next year’s trip on the way home.

Hey there, my name is Stephanie and I volunteer every Friday at Regent Park Focus with the Divas Girls Group. Our group is made up of about 15 girls who are between 9 and 14 years old. What we do varies week to week, but most weeks you’ll find us working on an art project, talking about issues that the girls are facing, taking part in workshops, dancing or going on field trips in the community. Our program is, for the most part, based on what the girls have identified as being important to them (health, relationships, finding creative ways to express themselves, dealing with gossip/rumors and identity). Some of the activities the girls have loved over the past year were: pumpkin carving at Halloween, learning a dance routine, designing and creating jewelry, trips to the distillery district and skating at Nathan Phillips square, and an outing to a restaurant where the girls got a hands-on lesson about healthy eating. On April 26th, the girls took part in a political poster workshop that...

Hi my name is Chantelle Hewitt. I'm a volunteer at Regent Park Focus and for the past 2 months I've started MC-ing the Last Fridays events for the months of February and March. Last Fridays is an evening of food, story telling, poetry, spoken word and live music performances which is held on the last Friday of each month. The event is hosted by Regent Park Focus and for the last couple of months It has been held at the Daniels Presentation Centre at 500 Dundas St. E. It was my first time doing public speaking and by MC-ing this event. I was nervous at first at first but got the hang of things and actually did a good job at hosting. In the month of February, it was Black History Month and the community was in for a great evening. We had performances by Kwanza (an African Drummer), Logic (spoken word poet), Singer/Songwriter Ania Soul, the Regent Park Focus House Band "Da Youngstas", and an African Fashion Show. All of these performers did a great job and the audience ...

After living in Regent Park for almost eight years, I have experienced a lot of negative things but honestly, at the end of the day I wouldn't leave this place for anything. This is because I spent more than half my life here, I know almost everyone when I walk outside. This is my home, outside my house. Considering that, it is a terrible feeling to be seen as a criminal in your own home. A few weeks ago, a lot concerned Regent Park citizens and the police that generally patrol the area met in the Regent Park Community Centre. The meeting was held to raise the issue of the police treating the residents of RP as criminals. Everyone was able to portray their perspective and concerns on the issue. Everyone was supportive of each other and were involved in finding a solution. More meetings will be held so that an understanding can be reached, and this problem be removed. In the end, we hope that we can have the police patrol in our community without them holding a prejudice tow...

Hey wassup everyone, this is Helen Choi, the Host and Producer for the second half of tonight's radio show at Regent Park Focus. I'm Blogging here because the RPF folks invited me to write about tonight's radio show on the issue of Human Trafficking of Filipino Nannies in our city. In exploring the topic we heard from our guests, local activists (Kim Abis 20, Cara Clemente 20, Jarelle Gabison 20) from the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance. They work directly with Filipino Nannies in the city, some as young as you! I decided to do this radio show when a group of young activists caught my attention with a press release in the Wednesday, March 11, 2009 issue of the University of Toronto Free Press "University of Toronto Turns to Unjust Solutions to Satisfy Child-care Demands" . This article was released four days before the Toronto Star Investigation of exploitation of Filipino nannies featured as a two part series in the Saturday and Sunday edition. Found here:...

Hey everyone this is Safiqur, I just finished an article on Mount Dennis Community Mobile Kitchen bike. I really have to say that I enjoyed interviewing Nicko Elliott a former UFT engineer who along with his teacher Adrian Blackwell and rest of his fellow engineer students built the mobile kitchen bike for Mount Dennis community in Toronto. Please read my article which will be published soon in Catch Da Flava magazine.

I am a Regent Park Focus Volunteer who helped with the March Break Camp. During the March Break I helped with planning and organizing March Break activities. During our March Break Camp we did Icebreakers, games, Arts and craft, and workshops. On the first day of the camp, we held a workshop on inner and outer beauty. We also held a workshop on sing along songs and poetry. For the workshop we invited a guest from the local Toronto Public library. The youths also had an opportunity to watch movies like “Slumdogs Millionaire”. At the end of each day, the youths evaluated each activity we did with them. On the last day of the program we took the youths to Casa Loma. They enjoyed their trip and got to learn lot of things about Casa Loma that they never knew. They found the trip to be very interesting for them. Every youth who came to our March Break camp enjoyed it and learned something from doing the workshops, trips and working together everyday. I really enjoyed the March Break camp, ...

Hey my name is Chantelle Hewitt, I’m a volunteer at Regent Park Focus, and on of the programs I had to run was the March Break event. On March 16 to March 20, the staff and volunteers of Regent Park Focus put on a March Break event at RPF for the kids ages 10-14 in the Regent Park community. As these 20 kids came to this exciting week we had planned for the kids, a lot of them were suspicious as to what was in store for them. We started off with an Icebreaker every morning so the kids would get to know one another. We then had arts and crafts everyday so the kids used their creativity. The kids also had to be in teams for the week and had to take part in games that would make them gain points for their team, by the end of the week the winning team won a prize. On Monday and Tuesday, we had 2 guest speakers come in for a workshop and share different topics and storytelling with the kids. One of the topics that we discussed was on “Inner and Outer Beauty.” Some of the kids opened up abou...

On tonight's radio show the topic was " look-ism" which is a form of discrimination based on someone's appearance. We had two guests join us from the Global Youth Network ( Zahrah Munas and Dorothy Attakor ), followed by a professor from the University of Toronto (Fiona Wittington ). All the guests spoke about what this term really means and opened it up to the audience for group discussion to finish off the show. Check out the show for more

The Directors group is gearing up for a whole new video project. The group is still doing the PSAs, but for now, they will be put in the back burner. As part of enhancing the participants' film making skills, the Directors group will be producing a hilarious short film about a man, and a bathroom. In the weeks to come, the Directors will be filming at Focus and in places around Regent Park, so stay tuned!

On tonight's show we had an open discussion around the barriers that youth face in trying to achieve their goals. We also spoke on the lack of supports for athletes in high school and how certain sports are inaccessible given their social location. Check this link to listen!!!

Onik and Azam have been interested in the topic of afro-centric school curriculum since the topic was publicly discussed a few years ago. Growing up in a neighborhood formerly known to have high drop-out rates, they wanted to learn more about this topic. The guest speaker is a teacher from their high-school and an advocate for the afro-centric school curriculum. Knowing that Mr. Sium has spoken about this controversial topic on several shows, Onik asked him to be the guest for the Catch Da Flava Radio show, discussing this issue. Onik and Azam both asked many questions regarding the details about the afro-centric curriculum-based elementary school starting in September.