Regent Park Focus

Today was an exciting day at the centre. We had an amazing special guest by the name of Manal Azar visit Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre. She’s a media professional with over 15 years of experience in the media industry. Even her father worked in media. She spoke with us about her experiences working as a news reporter for an international news organization called Al Jazeera. She seemed to really enjoy her experience working with Al Jazeera, and praised them for their efforts to keep their news coverage neutral in opinion, even though many of the issues that the Arab news station covers are quite controversial In fact, the issues were so controversial sometimes that the U.S. government had refused to allow Al Jazeera to open a headquarters in the United States. They eventually did though. One of the most controversial news stories offered by Al Jazeera was an interview done with the late Osama bin Laden. Manal remarked how strange it was that the news organization wa...

Today we had a really interactive workshop/ discussion regarding sexual harassment, otherwise known as rape. Erin, producer of The Youth and the Law Show, led the discussion. Everyone at Focus provided great input and asked excellent questions that further improved the discussion content. Erin taught us what is considered rape and what isn't as well as methods to defend yourself legally and the actions you can take if the act has been committed against you. One thing that made the discussion really interesting was the use of real examples that happened of different types of sexual harassment cases. Overall, today was a great discussion and there was great input from everyone about their positions and perspective on this subject.   - Nedda

My name is Alice Yan, and I am a volunteer at Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre. Today, I assisted in filming a documentary about what goes on behind the scenes at Regent Park Focus. It was a unique experience for me, as I had never been on camera interviewing people before. Not only did I improve my communication skills, but I also realized how fortunate I was to have come across such a worthwhile volunteer opportunity. Filming the documentary was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it - experiencing new things is one reason why I love coming to Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre. - Alice Yan

Today we filmed the second episode of The-She-World and it was a lot of fun. I was director and co-producer so I was in charge of assigning roles to crew members such as cameramen, audio crew and a switcher. We had an awesome guest on the show who had just as much fun as us on set. Everything went pretty smoothly. I love being director because I feel in charge of everything going on within the studio and I get to make the calls on different types of angles and more. I'm excited to film The-She-World again next week. - Nedda

Today, the second of August was my second day here at the Regent Park Youth Focus Media Arts Centre. One word to sum the day up? Hmmm... Unfortunately, one word will not do. After all, the day was an exciting one - full of wonderful opportunities. I began the day with great excitement as I was to go on a tour of the CBC. The group that went on this tour, was a fairly small but enthusiastic group which consisted of Katherine, Pierce, Alice and myself along with our wonderful supervisor Ehsan, without whom this trip would not have been possible. We were a very enthusiastic group who got a tour of the CBC by an editor of the CBC himself. He took us to various places inside the building. It was an amazing experience as all of us got to learn a lot from this trip. The trip began at around 12:00 and it lasted till around 2:00. When the tour was over, we headed back to Regent Park Youth Media Arts Center. Other volunteers/ workers who were not with us on the CBC tour...