Regent Park Focus

On Thursday October 31, 2013 the media lab became a Pre-Halloween hangout for kids waiting for darkness to proceed with the always-fun trick or treating. In the Media lab, a new chance at learning was made by having the youth make a blog and a Gmail, if they did not have one. As a new initiative youths that come to the media center on Thursday will be encouraged to post a new editorial in their blog before they are allowed to go on social media websites. This will serve as both a learning media experience and an outlet for stress and the daily troubles of being a youth. The youth were quite receptive to the blog and many wrote of their Halloween experience at their schools. The youth also talked about the history of Halloween as originally a Pagan tradition having changed over hundreds of years. We also talked about Halloween plans including haunted houses and the export of candy from the neighboring house to their pillowcases and shopping bags. The excitement could hardly be co...

Friday October 25 th 2013 the Diva Girls had a guest speaker come in to talk about resiliency, ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy, and stresses the youth face everyday. The guest speaker, Christine, asked girls to choose their top three stressors and it seemed as though the girls unanimously decided that the top three stressors were, drum roll; School, Parents and Drama. We explored these topics deeper to get a better sense of why these things stress the youth, for example, many of the youth felt that school held all the stressors in their life such as friend drama and the stress of failing/not doing well and having their parents be disappointed. Although some of the youth put on a tough face many of the other youths talked openly about daily stressors like not fitting in and even violence.    The Diva Girls kept an open mind and everyone participated as they learned about ways to deal with daily st...

The group reviewed two videos that dealt with stereotypes. The first video was specifically stereotypical behavior from Toronto Youth. In this video we saw three males in different scenarios, at the mall, the barbershop, to name a few places. We heard phrases like, “I’m out here bro,” “beef ting,” and one that seemed most comical, “ yo boom!” The group discussed how the video made them feel and shared past experiences that related to other more serious stereotypes they had faced. This then sparked conversation about social norms and the struggle to fit in vs. the struggle to disassociate from them.   The last video was a segment from the show: The talk. They did a spoof on stereotypes, playing upon stereotypes used against African Americans, Lesbians, Asians, and The British. This was in response to Sophia Vergara an actress on the television show Modern family, who plays the character “Gloria.” Many have complained that her character is a stereotype of a “hot fiery La...

Last week the youth of the Diva Girls program worked together to create a presentation on a culture that is different from their own. On Friday October 11th 2013 the Diva Girls explored many topics some of which we touched upon last week but didn’t quite understand, these topics included, an article on assisted suicide (which can be found below), the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and experiencing and appreciating others culture. With new girls arriving review an old topic gave the youths a chance to see what has been talked about before and expand the understanding of the girls who were left a little confused. When the youth came in we did a check in on how everyone was doing with their reading reward system and almost every youth in attendance had read a book/finished a book in that week. The group was also rewarded for filling out a important survey on where Regent Park community funding should go. If your child has not completed this survey and would like to they are availa...

On Friday October the 4 th the Diva Girls talked about many topics such as the Quebec Charter of Values and Teamwork. Two need segments were introduced the “What is happening this week?” and the reading initiative which rewards Diva Girl members when a book has been read. The youth were asked the question “how do they feel about Quebec’s Charter of Values?” after reading an article as linked below. The Charter of Values is a new decree from the Bloc Quebecois that restricts all religious symbols on public sector employees, such as hijabs, large crosses, etc. The group, although young, spoke volumes touching on subjects like human rights, the charter of rights and freedoms and law making in Canada. The youth came to an agreement that not only was the Charter of Values un-Canadian but also against human rights. The Diva Girls also had time to think about teamwork and what it meant to be a team both in the community, at home and in the world. Split into two groups the youth ...