Regent Park Focus

What is the highlight of the October shows? Let me see… All I can say is that -   “it was so awesome!” Nelly Furtado, the Grammy winner visited Regent Park at the Daniels Spectrum and opened our show for our community event called “The Jam!” which was formerly known as the Last Fridays. It was a great experience for the youth around the Regent Park community to have Nelly give them the mentorship and give all the young artists and performers inspiration to be great just like her. The catchdaflava radio crew was sworn to secrecy and was very discreet not to mention about her visit as it is supposed to be a surprise for the youth and the community. Imagine handling that capacity of the crowd traffic for Nelly Furtado at the Daniels Spectrum if they knew she was coming?!!! Anyhow, enough about Nelly, there was a lot of pumped up topics that happened this month. Amanda Todd made a huge impact when she posted videos on Youtube and Facebook after revealing her stories and then die...

On the young ladies of the diva girls program celebrated Eid with their families   and friends, because of this, more than a handful of girls were MIA. The workshop and activities planned for the day were moved to the next diva girls session in the upcoming week. L.T. Mujuzi

On Thursday October 18th, the Boys to Men group entered the second week of their fitness challenge with their trainer Angela. This week the boys competed against one another to see if they could improve on a series of exercises that they had done last week. After the fitness challenge it was time to for a fun and relaxing activities. Before the end of the boys fitness challenge, they were put on the spot when asked a couple questions about the muscles in their body that they learned last week. Even though some of them were very tricky the Boys got an A+ for paying attention to what they had learned last week. At the end of the day a few of the boys were video interviewed by staff member Emmanuel, to see how the boys felt about their second week of the fitness challenge. He asked questions such as; "What they liked/disliked about the challenge?" "Did they successfully improve on their previous amount of exercise?" "And what they learned that day?" - ...

On Thursday October 18th, the Boys to Men group entered the second week of their fitness challenge with their trainer Angela. This week the boys competed against one another to see if they could improve on a series of exercises that they had done last week. After the fitness challenge it was time to for a fun and relaxing activities. Before the end of the boys fitness challenge, they were put on the spot when asked a couple questions about the muscles in their body that they learned last week. Even though some of them were very tricky the Boys got an A+ for paying attention to what they had learned last week. At the end of the day a few of the boys were video interviewed by staff member Emmanuel, to see how the boys felt about their second week of the fitness challenge. He asked questions such as; "What they liked/disliked about the challenge?" "Did they successfully improve on their previous amount of exercise?" "And what they learned that day?" - Da...

The Diva Girls Program October 12, 2012 Stereotyping has existed in our cultures and communities for years now, this past Friday the girls learned what it is to stereotype and the impact stereotyping can have on those individuals being impacted. Therefore, after introducing a few new girls to the program with another energizing ice breaker activity, which needless to say, got the girls up and active. The girls settled down and proceeded to explore ways in which stereotyping has impacted them in their personal lives. To give you a brief insight, the girls talked about how the media portrays them as teens, how adults sometimes brush aside their concerns when voiced because they are "too young" and also how others perceive them based solely on their attire or cultural beliefs. One way that a stereotype can develop is when one individual has an opinion about a person which would then be transferred to everyone in that group, community or culture. These stereotypes ma...

September turned out to be another chaotic month for the Catch da Flava radio crew with all the community events going on around Regent Park. When I said chaotic, I meant poppin with such “ill—sickness” of events and topics to discuss! One such event is the grand opening of the Daniel’s Spectrum (The Regent Park Arts and Cultural hub) another one is the Nuit Blanche, which was held at the end of the month and you can check out our Last Friday / Nuit Blanche blog and you will see what this was all about. Our topics were consisted of a few updates from very highly amazing people of interest such as Omar Khadr’s much awaited return to Canada, Cris Brown’s talk of his breach of probation and getting tested positive for Marijuana use, and also the “Bullied Grandma the Bus monitor” receiving the donation money here in Canada! There were a few celebrity deaths such as Michael Clarke Duncan and Jerry Lawler, but a lot of death hoax also came out this month specifically “Alfonso Ribeiro” the “...

The Regent Park Multicultural Harvest Festival took place at the Daniels Spectum (585 Dundas Street East) on Saturday October 6th, 2012 between the time of 11:00am and 4pm. The event featured entertainment, food, games, prizes, seminars and a whole lot more! Even the Regent Park Focus House Band preformed along-side other talented artists from the community. We took the Mobile Media Bike Lab (also known as The Mammal) along with us for the visit of the festival; stationed along-side with residents that had set up booths to sell artwork and clothing that reflect the diverse cultures that exist within the Regent Park Community. We transformed The Mammal into a radio recording station and interviewed a few people that were involved in the festival. We'd like to thank Karen Boucher, the event volunteer coordinator for inviting us to the event.  ~ Tyrone

Diva Girls Program October 5, 2012 This past week the girls in the diva girls program continued working on their character sketch stories. We started the day off participating in ice breaker activities that allowed the girls to learn more about each other in a fun atmosphere. Along with the ice breaker activity, the girls also enjoyed playing a round of "word and colour association". The girls had to restrain themselves from helping each other as one girl after the other took turns completing the challenge. After the ice breaker activity, the girls learned that there was an added bonus to this weeks program. The group with the best story would be awarded a prize for following the guideline and inputing the most original content into their story. The girls stepped up to the challenge and genuinely impressed Pat and myself, their ability to transform a simple guideline into such imaginative tales was very impressive. R.T. Mujuzi

On Thursday October 4 th 2012, the Boys to Men’s group had a very fun and exciting day. The boy’s went to the movie theatre to watch Hotel Transylvania.   The movie is about monster’s that have their own hotel, and have the freedom to be themselves, without having to fear humans coming there. The movie takes a spin when a human stumbles into the hotel, and falls in love with one of the monsters. Throughout the movie the father tries to destroy their love because they are different. In the end he begins to accept that they are different. The moral of the story is acceptance, and at the Boys to Men group, we try our best to teach the boys to be accepting of others, even when they’re different. - Danielle A.

The Boys to Men group is a program for male youths ages 9-13 at the Regent Park Media Arts Centre, every Thursday. Last week the Boys to Men group got to visit the new Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre. The boys got to see some of the art work that would be displayed at the Nuit Blanche event that were done by some of their fellow peers. The boys really enjoyed themselves. This outing gave the boys an opportunity to see how other people and cultures perceive artwork. - Danielle A.