Regent Park Focus

Luminato illuminated Toronto with arts and creativity. For years Luminato displays the celebration of theatre,dance,music,film and so much more. The best part about Luminato is that most of the events and concerts are free. This is because Luminato is designed for the people to celebrate and explore the arts. On Friday June 11, 2010, the art festival that is LUMINTO, hit the city of Toronto. The opening night was a free DIVA themed concert at Dundas Square. The crowd was packed to see 3 amazing Canadian Divas. E Talk's Traci Melchor, was the host of the night. I cheered on Traci and she thanked me backstage for supporting her. Traci Melchor is seriously amazing. She is humble and down to earth. We got the opportunity to go backstage. She chatted with the Diva writing girl's group and took a lot of pictures with us. Traci was giving the young Diva writing group advice to reach for your goals and to never give up on following your dreams. She c

A couple of months ago, Regent Park Focus welcomed two students from City View Alternative elementary school in April. Geordie and Finlay chose to do their final video ISU project at Regent Park Focus. The young boys had 1 week to put together an amazing video presentation on a social justice issue. Time was limited so could they pull it off? On the first day staff member and video expert Emmanuel involved the boys in the entire project by teaching them about the background of Regent Park Focus and video camera techniques. This incorporated learning how to use the video camera, equipment, the various angles, positions, methods and a tour around the media studios. The boys took turns practicing what they learned and helped each other out. I also filled in as their subject when they were using the camera for a practice taping. The next day implicated jotting down ideas tossed in the air and it also involved brainstorming. Many topics were discussed such as; homelessness, racism and bull

On Saturday June 19th I had the privilege of escorting seven passionate young journalists to a panel they moderated as part of the Luminato festival, called Pop Divas . The panel was part of the festival’s Illuminations program, and the culmination of a few months of work. A group of young women including new and seasoned members of the Catch da Flava magazine collective participated in a series of workshops held at Focus where they met and discussed the art of music journalism and pop diva specific reportage with professional music journalists, practiced researching, writing and editing articles, and developed in person interview skills. These skills were applied in the development of their articles which are being published in a special edition of Catch da Flava magazine, and in the prep work and facilitation they did for the Illuminations panel. Some of Saturday’s panellists the girls had met before in their workshop sessions. Jody Rosen, music writer and critic for slate.com and

What is the definition of a Diva? A lot of people have their own opinion on the characteristics of a DIVA and who they think is a DIVA in the music industry. Luminato collaborated with Regent Park Focus and created a writing workshop for the youth. In the beginning it was both boys and girls who attended the writing group. However, the girls seemed more interested in the whole DIVA topic than the boys. Therefore, it was a writing workshop for young girls. The ladies met up every Tuesday as the Luminato crew explored the music world as they incorporated writing schemes. Special guests were also part of the workshops. Jody Rosen is the music critic for Rolling Stone Magazine and the online magazine Slate. His articles on popular music have also appeared in The New York Times. Another special facilitator was Canadian writer Carl Wilson, who is the culture editor at the Globe and Mail, and the author of 'Let’s Talk About Love: A Journe

Speakers: Shamleiy, Saad and Abdi After hours of contemplating various radio show topics we had all come to the conclusion of talking about GM(genetically modified) foods. All of us being from 3rd world countries we this topic affects us tremendously. We started of speaking about the pro's and con's of GM foods and it turned out being a heated debated. Much information was discovered over the radio such as making GM foods is playing God. In our opinion this show was our best radio show do to the fact that we this show after doing many shows and gaining ample experience. We felt very sensitive about this topic due to our backgrounds and affects that GM foods has on our countries.

Speakers: Onik, Saad, Mohammed > The following radio show was based on : what obesity is, the problems related to obesity, health risks of obesity, preventing obecity, and being cautious about obesity. we spoke briefly on each of the above topics related to obesity. we also spoke about how obesity effects various people such as students, and adults. We also spoke about how to reduce the risks of obesity. We felt the radio show was sort of rusty in the beginning because of nervousness, but later we got into the feeling and starting speaking naturally. overall the radio show went better than the ones we did previously because we learn from our mistake and adapt to different situations.