Regent Park Focus

What a smashing time for the community of Regent Park on July 27th! The Last Friday event once again had delivered a very massive catastrophe for the residents – popping with its musical skills, poetic talents, and chaotic storytelling. Hosted by Jerry Z , performances by the Southside Swaggs, our very own Regent Park Focus House Band, 16 year old Neil Wadhvana, Madame J from K-dub, and our newest discovery from our media arts youth groups Iman, and our most favourite 8 year old Rawaa singing to Adeles’Someone like you. As always this musical event is for free along with food and refreshments for the community of Regent Park. The Last Friday is not possible without the help of Regent Park Focus Media Art Centre and the Daniels Corporation. Come join us for the next Last Friday August, 31 st    this month! The event will end with Jerry Z dancing to Michael Jacksons’”Billy Jean”and everyone should join him in this dance!  Jerry Zabarte

Today is the first time we took the Mobile Media Lab also known as "The Mammal" to Regent Park's new weekly summer event called "Show Love". We played music from the bike after unfolding it like a Transformer and entertained the visitors at the event.

This week the Boys 2 Men crew had a very relaxing day. We had chosen to watch a film called “Blind Side”. We thought it would be a great idea for a masculinity theme and the struggles of youth in poverty. It was a favourite amongst the boys group in which they were able to relate to the story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All American football player and first round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family. - Jerry Z

The Boys II Men program has been running since April every Thursday during after school hours. The purpose of establishing the Boys II Men program is to get male youth to engage in activities in order to improve their facilitation skills, their communication skills and their cooperation skills and as well as to get them active at the same time. Activities include sports, arts and crafts and field trips and of course media-related activities. Boys enrolled in this program are entitled in choosing the activities and to free refreshments. Through out the course of the program, the boys were heavily active when it came to physical activities. These boys really enjoy playing basketball and running games, which includes tag and manhunt. Other games they played include dodge ball and swimming. As well, the Boys II Men program provides a learning experience as the boys learn about issues hat are going on in today’s society.  The boys learned about the negative aspects of drug-use and is...

On this day we had a guest by the name of Grace Leui, a nurse from Toronto Public Health , come in to help share some research and information on air quality with the Regent Park Focus team that will be working with the Toronto Live Green project. We will be creating posters, radio and video PSAs about air quality for Live Green. We learned many things about smog, pollution and unhealthy airborn particles that could reduce air quality. She always shared with us some information on what people can do to help protect themselves from reduced air quality. An air quality health index was also created to allow for people at home to monitor the air quality outdoors before they leave for the day to see if its safe to do certain activities outside. We also tackled a couple topics such as reducing vehicle emissions. The following tips included: riding a bike, walking or local transit for short distances, carpooling and even something called trip chain. Trip chain is combining errands into on...

The Sunday in the Park Festival 2012 – the longest running annual event in Regent Park – celebrated its 21st Anniversary on July 8! The Regent Park Focus House Band was busy delighting the audience with music and entertainment while The Catch da Flava radio crew conducted an onsite radio show from The Mobile Media Lab Bike (The Mammal). We interviewed Glen Murrey, Firefighters and many organizations and residents in the Regent Park area. ~ Tyrone

The Diva Girls program at Regent Park Focus wrapped up last Friday at the centre for the summer. The girls were excited but sad at the same time. Nevertheless, the Diva Girls may start up again for some workshops this summer. A good group of familiar faces showed up and some new girls too. The girls started off by writing a journal about what the Diva Girls meant to them. They also had to highlight two important Diva girls trips or workshops which included; Healthy Living, Healthy relationships, International Women’s Day special radio show, Science Centre, team work, role models and knitting workshops. Most of the girls wrote about their most recent field trip, which was visiting the chocolate factory downtown. We put on some music and some of them had fun dancing, singing and showing their talents to one another. We than had snacks which included, chips, flavoured popcorn, pizza, onion rings and wedges. We topped it off with soft drinks and cookies. We are thankful all the ...

This week the Boys II Men crew had a very hectic day for the program. They started by finishing the audio project for the radio PSAs that they had started on the previous weeks. Andrew helped them accomplish this by taking them to the radio studio booth. The audio project, themed masculinity, was combined with video clips, music sound clips, and collective interviews from the youths of the Boys II Men program. There was great enthusiasm in the faces of the boys after walking in the radio room, knowing that they were being interviewed, and recorded about the issues of ‘masculinity’. This gave them a sense of empowerment as they feel that their opinion and choices matter while doing the radio PSAs. Some of the boys picked a role model that they felt was a strong, powerful masculine man. Their choices differed from sports athlete like Derrick Rose to political leaders like Martin Luther king and Mahatma Gandhi. Later on Rob Perry from the Salvation Army came to visit with the kids. Does ...

A lot of pumped up action once again today with the Boys To Men crew. We decided to play a challenge activity game that involved coordination and teamwork. We called this game the “Balloon Toss”. In this game we used balloons and filled it with water and then, the boys were supposed to pair up with someone and form a line parallel across their teammate. Then they toss the balloon with water to their team partner. The partner then will try and catch the balloon and prevent it from dropping onto the ground so it won’t burst and explode. The team that drops and let the balloon burst will be out. The last team standing without dropping the balloon will be the prizewinner. Natnael and Noor were the last remaining team so they won the chocolate box prize. After that, we took the show indoors and had some nachos and dips and some bruschetta bread for the snack break. Andrew took over after the snack break and assigned the boys some tasks for a radio PSA with regards to the theme of mascul...

This week all the boys got ready and got all pumped up to go to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). Surprisingly, there were more boys that had shown up for this trip than usual. There are no words to describe how the boys felt on having the experience to see the greats, the painters, the sculptors, and artists. When we arrived we were fortunate enough to meet an elderly lady that took us around the Art Gallery. She was more than kind enough to show us bits and pieces of the works of Picasso. There was an exhibition show for Picasso that day but we were not allowed to go view most of his work, and the kids got disappointed. This is due to the fact that we had to pay an extra $5.50 for each person to upgrade our admission to see the show, but we had limited funds. Overall, the kids learned a lot about the painters and were very fascinated by their works and legacies. The boys were shocked in learning about the price value and worth of the paintings. They were inspired with the artworks a...

Luminato is an amazing festival of the arts. From June 8 to June 17 the stages, streets and communities of Toronto are illuminated with theatre, music, visual arts, fashion, literature and so much more. I was very happy that I got to participate in this one of a kind festival by joining the 3D Building Designs Program at Regent Park Focus. As many know, the community of Regent Park is going through a lot of revitalization which may last over the next few years or so. This program allowed us to create our own version of what we want in our community, and we were free to create whatever we wanted to. During the program we also got introduced to Google Sketch Up, the 3D software that we used during this program. At first I thought that it was very difficult to use Sketch Up but in the end I got the hang of it. Overall this program was a lot of fun. I got to meet new people, do new things, and have a great time. I definitely recommend this program to others and I wish to participate in it...

Boys to Men May 16, 2012 Today, we were very lucky because we had 7 of the boys attend our program.  Even though some of them came in a bit later, we managed to meet up at the playground of Duke of York.  We played a game similar dodge ball.  We had 2 teams and a pylon for each of the players.  The pylons were lined up in 2 roles, opposing each other, as there were 2 teams.The goal of the game was to knock out all the opposing team’s pylons, with either one of the 2 balls, while keeping your own pylons erect.  We managed to play around 3 games with 3 staff members.   This game taught the boys a lot about teamwork and strategy.  Afterword, we played a few games of tag and manhunt with the kids.  We thought it was important for the boys to be physically active, to promote health and wellbeing.  At 5:15 pm, we went for a snack break at Regent Park Focus; we had tuna fish sandwiches and no turkey, because it wasn’t considered to be ha...

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

The May Last Friday was held at 246 Sackville Street and it was another fun evening with new talent. We had the Focus House Band kick off the night with what they do best as everyone ate Caribbean food. We also had Trevonne also known as 1 2 Tres read a poem he wrote. Trevonne is truly a Jack of all trades. He can produce beats, play the drums, the guitar and now write poetry? Wow! We had Isaac who is part of Catch da Flava Radio read a poem he wrote. Isaac was really nervous but as he said in his poem he, “came to finish what he started” and he did! I was so proud of him. Amazing talent from our youth in the Regent Park community! We had Sean Reyes perform who also came into the Radio Regent studios a few months ago on one of our Catch da Flava Youth Radio shows. You can check out his interview by visiting our archives on our website www.regentparkfocus.com. Sean has been through a lot after getting into a serious accident and having numerous brain surgeries. Music brings happines...

Today proved to be quite an interesting day for the boys. They were able to get some much needed excercise, thanks to Tadios, for bringing his basketball. We met at Regent Park Focus at 4:30pm and went to the basketball court across the street. At around 5:15pm, the boys were hungry, so we went across the street to Noor's Pizza to have a bite to eat. Jerry was kind enough to pay out of his own pocket for the pizzas. The boys got to choose from pepperoni and vegetarian. After the pizzas, we went to Freshco for drinks. at around 6:00, the boys came back to Regent Park Focus;we were able to watch the video recap of the boys to men program that we made a week earlier. It was all in good fun as the boys were able to see themselves in the third person. The boys were so enthusiastic about the boys to men program that they suggested extending the program though the summer. After watching the video, the boys did 30 minutes of comic art. Theme of this program was a self portrait. Many of th...

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 impo...

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 privile...

 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 ...

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 ...

Today was a very productive day for the boys. We had 5 boys show up for the workshop, but we had a lot of fun. We were able to get Dainty Smith to come and do a workshop with the boys; this was a workshop based on teaching the boys about the negative aspects that the mainstream media has on gender, deconstructing the status quo. At first, we played a game that Jerry brought to us. It involved passing an item around a circle, using only our legs. We first tried it with our eyes open. Then, we tried it with our eyes closed; each time the item was passed, it the participant was allowed to open his eyes and help with directions; this game taught the boys some leadership skills and teamwork sills. The game was fun; it took around 20 minutes. We had a brief introduction of ourselves, as we sat in a circle. Dainty started talking about the radicalized image given of masculinity in the media. Dainty asked each participant ‘what it takes to be a man’. One of the participants said the wor...

Hey it’s Paige, George Brown Student, and as the school year winds down, (the kids aren’t the only ones counting!) we are also winding down here at Diva girls. The program will end for the year in a few months and start back up in September. Since the program is ending soon, we needed to start thinking of something to do for an end of the year project. There has been a really good turn out and new girls joining us, so to start out we did a name game to make sure we knew everybody’s name. What happened was participant one would say their name and do an action. Then participant number 2 would say their name do an action, and then say the person’s name that just went and their action. The pattern repeats itself until everybody goes. It’s a good way to remember because there is a lot of repeating and trying to remember. After that, we played another game to get girls to think about who they are and also learn interesting things about themselves. I gave everybody a piece of paper and ever...

Today was a very productive day for the Boyz 2 Men program. The topic that we were trying to teach the youth was ‘chivalry’. This was a very important topic for the topic of ‘masculinity’. It was originally from the White Ribbon Campaign, at Ryerson University, and McClungs Magazine. Sub-topics included how chivalry should evolve rather than end. Because there were some chauvinistic undertones of the issue, the boys were taught how to act and how not to act. Placement student Paige was very helpful in the elaboration of the topic. After the lesson, the boys were given a quiz. Each time they answered the question correctly, they were given a candy. The boys literally ate it up. During break time, at 5:15, the boys had some snacks and juice. They were very intelligent and were able to retain much of the lesson taught to them. Afterward, the boys did some arts and crafts. Each of them made a collage with magazines, glue, and scissors given to them. The theme that the activi...

Today was the first day of the Boyz 2 Men program. Unfortunately, we only had one staff member present. The boys who showed up included Fataltal, Natnael, Tadios, Claude, Mousbah, Yacin, Canaan, and Kayden. We did a brief introduction exercise with the boys. We had a bag of skittles; each youth had 2 candies. The rule of the activity is that each colour represented something that the boys were to talk about: Lime represented favorite movie; grape was favorite place, lemon was favorite person; strawberry was favorite food, and orange was the wild card. The boys loved the part when they got to eat the candy. We were able to play a game called acrostics; this is a game in which you choose a person, and use the letters in their name to make a description of the person. Each boy was supposed to pick a male role model and use acrostics to describe him. We lost time of track when we were doing this activity because there was a lot of side talk that was going on. Many interesting c...

Hi everyone, My name is Maria and I've come to Toronto all the way from Ireland to work with Regent Park Focus for seven weeks as part of a cultural and training program. I'm into my second week of being in Toronto and working in Regent Park Focus. So far, I'm enjoying every minute of my time in Canada and of course working in Focus. I should maybe explain a little about how I ended up being here in Toronto and working for Focus. Back home in Ireland, I applied for a nineteen week program called, Springboard. The course name is 'Wider Horizons'. It's a program which is open to anyone interested in furthering their knowledge and experience. It offers the chance for a person to gain the crucial experience they need to hopefully be able to eventually have a career in an area of work which they love. Mine being film production, photography, editing & music. I got a perfect placement in terms of all those things, since Focus offers them all and more. There we...

Our April Last Friday was really fun. We had an incredible line up of performers. We had the Focus House Band who played some great lively songs. Speaking of Regent Park Focus House Band, we also had Subway Roy perform. He started the Focus House Band. Subway Roy was a placement student at Regent Park Focus and he taught the drumming group. Subway Roy fundraised and raised a lot of money to buy equipment for the band. When the band started Tejah was the original singer. Tejah is the little sister of Trevonne who is still in the Focus House Band. Subway Roy took the band to perform at many events and venues including The Hard Rock Café. Subway Roy rocked the crowd with his guitar skills. However, he did not play the drums. We also had Kush I Krown perform. Kush is an amazing young woman who sings reggae music. She stated that she is doing this for the kids. She has an amazing spirit. My favourite part was when Kush I Krown gave me a shout out. I love her lyrics. If you want to listen...

I was in class when Mr. Blue called Brandon, Abu and me. He informed us about a group called Focus and that it was a big group and there are many groups within it. Mr. Blue told us that we were going to join the radio group, we all got very excited. When we got to Focus we met Andrew, our leader, he gave us a tour of the place and told us our jobs. Mr. Blue assigned us our partners; Alexis and I, Brandon with Lam and Abu with Mr. Blue. First Andrew asked us to pick a topic for our radio show. So Alexis and I picked fashion as our topic, Lam and Brandon picked YouTube, and Abu and Mr. Blue picked drug addictions. Than Andrew advised us to make questions about our topic, we researched our topic every Tuesdays and Thursday, we also looked for a person to interview, and we got ready to interview Erin, Andrew informed us that we were going to do the interview on Tuesday 28. On that day everybody was thrilled, after we finished Andrew let us know that we did a good job. Next day, we starte...

Hi there! It’s Hani On March 21, 2012 the girls did workshop about teamwork. At the beginning we discussed about how their day went. We talked about school and any many new things that they wanted to share. Secondly, we did ice breaking games, such as the “Big Buddy” and the “Warp Speed” and the girls love it. Most girls said they had fun and enjoyed playing the games. They even ask me if they can continue to play. I told them the workshop is even better. Then, started the workshop with them. I asked them what a teamwork means to them. Some of the girls said,“Teamwork means the whole group work together”. Some other girls in the group said,“Teamwork meant that the group listens to each other’s opinions, cooporate with one other, and respect the whole group”. After that, I put the girls into small teams and gave them mini marshmallows and toothpicks to build a “Marshmallow Tower”. I told them which ever team wins gets a price. The girls competed and they each wanted their team to w...

Monday – Facilitator and blog author: James Chan March 12, 2012 was the first day in the March Break Fun Camp at Regent Park Focus. The first activity we did with the kids was a brief introduction. I introduced myself, and as an icebreaker, each of the kids told us their name, and told the group one true and two false attributes about themselves. The rest of us had to guess which attribute was true. A few of the ground rules were laid out by a brainstorm done by the youth. Some of the ground rules include the use of indoor voices, and, put downs were discouraged as well. At around 10:30 am, all fifteen of the youth were separated into 4 groups, and were taken out the take pictures. Unfortunately, we only had four cameras that worked. The session was self-themed. After lunchtime, at around 1:30 pm, Kim from Toronto Public Health was kind enough to come in and talk to us about “the birds and the bees”, which was rhetorical for reproductive health. The topics were inclusive of HIV, AID...

My experience volunteering with Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre Photography Workshop My journey with Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre began back in September when I attended a Regent Park Community Fair. Various grass roots and community organizations had gathered on that afternoon to solicit volunteers. Regretfully, I was not attending the fair voluntarily. As it happened, I had to complete 40 hours of volunteer work as part of my Bachelor of Education program through York University: Regent Park Satellite campus. Interestingly, as time went on, I became less and less compelled to volunteer based on the mandatory basis of my program and more and more motivated to go based on the great experiences I was having while volunteering with Focus. To paint a clearer picture, this volunteer experience was our Volunteer Practicum Placement and its purpose seemed two fold. On the one hand, this outreach was meant to support a variety of community organizations in Re...

Last Friday for February was awesome! Not only was it fun because Rainbow Cinemas and Rainbow Bear showed up for a surprise visit  but we also had incredible performers! We started off the night with some Sri Lankan food which included kothu roti, samosas, and noodles with veggies, shrimp and chicken. We had had some chocolate chip cookies courtesy of radio show host Paul Corby. The first performers were Projonmo. Projonmo, featuring Shawrov, Ka-Z,Tamim, Rahin and Ajhar is the newest craze to hit your speakers. Infusing both English and Bengali hip-hop/r&b/rock together to bring a new sensation to your ears. However, opportunity presented itself in the form of Re2uned. As time went on, he was introduced to Ka-Z, who was a fellow aspiring Bengali artist.With time, came new faces. Tamim, a classmate of Shawrov's was particularly impressive on the guitars. Ironically it worked out that Tamim somehow ended up being Ka-Z;s neighbor, completing the trio. In 2011, there was the ...

As a volunteer, I taught the Poster Design program during Fall 2011 and now the program has been partnered up with Comic Life. The children were designing posters digitally, using Adobe Illustrator and images from the internet. Some of the topics they covered were about healthy habits, safety, and people who inspired them. When I first started, I didn’t really know how to start introducing them to a program they had probably not encountered before so I let them choose what they wanted to make their posters of and then gave them themes to work with. In working with new media, the children that participate are learning a new program that can help them with future projects. Nicole Connors

My name is Hani; I am a student from George Brown College in the Community Worker Program.  I am a coordinator in training, with in the Divas Program at Regent Park focus.   The program is for girls between the ages of 11 to 16 years of age and it happens every Friday. We had a couple of new girls who were interested in the Divas program.  This Friday February 3, the girls came together and did educational workshops about healthy decision making with Public health Nurse (Tina). Before Tina began, the girls enjoyed a healthy snack.  Furthermore, they discussed how to make healthy decisions. The girls were very involved with activities that Tina created for them.  They discussed the six steps to decision making/problem solving.  For example, the first step they discussed was “ Identify and define the problem.  Consider what an optimal outcome or goal might be.”  Second step was to “list possible options/alternatives or choices.  Third s...

Last Friday for February was awesome! Not only was it fun because Rainbow Cinemas and Rainbow Bear showed up but we also had incredible performers! We started off the night with some Sri Lankan food which included kothu roti, samosas, and noodles with veggies, shrimp and chicken. We had had some chocolate chip cookies courtesy of radio show host Paul Corby. The first performers were Projonmo. Projonmo, featuring Shawrov, Ka-Z,Tamim, Rahin and Ajhar is the newest craze to hit your speakers. Infusing both English and Bengali hip-hop/r&b/rock together to bring a new sensation to your ears. However, opportunity presented itself in the form of Retuned. As time went on, he was introduced to Ka-Z, who was a fellow aspiring Bengali artist.With time, came new faces. Tamim, a classmate of Shawrov's was particularly impressive on the guitars. Ironically it worked out that Tamim somehow ended up being Ka-Z;s neighbor, completing the trio. In 2011, there was the add...

Hey it’s Paige here again, In case you missed my last blog, I am a George Brown Student, studying Community Work. I am doing my placement here at Regent Park Focus. This Friday at Diva Girls there was a pretty good turn out considering some of the girls were unable to make it. Due to the fact that it was a P.A day for the girls in middle school, we started the program at 2 and ended at 4; the downside being, the high school girls didn’t make it! Friday the 24 th , we are holding Last Friday and the Diva girls are going to be participating in it, by doing a poem or a skit. So to get the girls brains going, when they came in we got them to reflect in their journals about Black History Month and how it affects them, positively or negatively. They could also reflect on somebody who they feel should be recognized as a good role model or an important person within Black History Month. Once everybody arrived and wrote for a few minutes, we did a fun icebreaker activity to get to know ea...

I really enjoy volunteering for Catch da Flava Radio show. It’s a great way to discuss current events and to educate listeners on issues that matter. I think the group on Wednesday is a good group they offer a lot of variety and different p erspectives. Finding ways to explore the issues ways in which I had never thought. Even though I research the topics a head of time I feel like I learn more through our discussion. I am always impressed how remarkably creative and insightful are the youth that participate in the show always offering new and fresh perspective. Best of all, however, is when we have guest to interview. I always find our guest interesting and filled with knowledge and the issue we discuss are important to the community and youth the same. It’s always great to get a first hand perspective from those interviewed. David Cormier

My name is Xavier Luxenburg and I’ve been working with Regent Park Focus on the Catch Da Flava Magazine. I’m a Bachelor of Education student at York University Regent Park site. My job at Focus is to facilitate students in the program by helping them write articles and improve writing skills. Our current goal is to publish an issue on the topic of multiculturalism once we get enough articles from youths in the area. When I started in late September of 2011, I did not know what to expect. As part of my programs requirement, I needed to volunteer 40 hours in a community-run organization. I chose Focus because I liked the idea of making youths more knowledgeable on media arts.  Regardless, I needed the hours to graduate but I found myself in a welcoming environment. The staff is pretty chill and the youth I’ve worked with are really great.             However, the last few months have been a bit of a challenge. Overall, att...

Hi there, My name is Laura and through York University’s Regent Park teaching program, I’ve had the opportunity to volunteer in Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre computer lab. Here, I’ve had the chance to meet youth from the community in a more relaxed after-school setting and introduce them to interactive programs including Comic Life. In the computer lab, kids have the chance to build their own storyboards with both images and words using MAC software. Not only do they have the opportunity to learn skills using the latest technology and become more media literate, but they have the chance to share their personal stories and own ideas with their peers and community. Since September, we’ve grown the program and taught different aspects of technology to kids aged 7-18. In December, we launched a contest to reward kids for their efforts. The resulting entries were amazingly creative and all those who participated received movie tickets to the neighborhood cinema. The c...

Regent Park Radio,2011 in perspective! Starting October 2011, I signed up at Radio Regent as Volunteer coordinator. It was all new to me.  I was excited to be volunteering at an organization that used media to engage youth. A half an hour show on internet radio every Tuesday. Our core  participants are Jerry, Fatima, Tresvonne, Emmanuel and  Michele. I had much to learn from the pros.  The first few sessions we went with the flow.  The participants addressed a variety of issues they were interested in and spoke naturally and freely about these topics.  There is a great deal of energy in the sound booth, the jokes, the bloopers just add to the fun we have. Like they say it’s the journey that counts!   A few weeks into the show it was decided to change the format and give it a little more structure, yet keeping the openness and energy.  The format consisted of a Main Topic, something usually in International/National news that participants ...