Regent Park Focus

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!