Regent Park Focus

On this episode of Interfaith Dialogue, Sahar Zaidi joined me to discuss violence and abuse against Muslim women. Sahar holds a Masters in Public Administration from the Schulich School of Business, a Masters in Business Administration from the American University of Sharjah and a B.S. in Accounting from Purdue University. Sahar has worked closely with Springtide Resources, the North York Women’s Shelter and the Canadian Urban Institute. While completing her Masters, Sahar worked on several research papers looking into immigration policies and their effects on victims of abuse. In addition, she works at the Canadian Council of Muslim Women as a Project Coordinator, where she carries out government funded projects. She educated us about the differences between physical, mental/emotional, verbal, economic, and sexual abuse put on Muslim woman. We discussed that there are many stereotypes within the Muslim community that must be challenged and lastly, she let us know what people i

Today the Divas were visited by a group of George Brown students who have organized a campaign and educational seminar about the Tar Sands and Pipeline 9. The youth listened to a presentation, watched videos and took part in interactive activities. They learned about the Tar Sands, Enbridge’s pipeline plans, previous oil spills, health risks and the environmental impact of the Tar Sands and these pipelines. A few girls in the group were very interested in the topic and have decided to write articles for Catch the Flava magazine about how they feel Line 9 will affect Ontarians. Many of the youth had not heard of the Tar Sands before, and could not believe that an environmental disaster of that level existed in Canada. This presentation sparked conversation between the girls about environmental justice and living in a healthy environment. This environmental topic interested the girls so much we will be planning another class where we discuss our own environment footprint and small

I joined Camila and Brandon to discuss what changes we would make in Toronto if we were elected mayor. Without question, all of us agreed instantaneously that the first thing that we would change is the transit system and extending it further into the GTA so that it is more accessible to come downtown from other areas. Another thing we would like to see change is make Toronto more appealing for tourists visually and also add more tourist attractions. One panel member also mentioned that he would like to see more funding in Toronto’s sports teams. Overall, the main focus would be to designate more money into the TTC and to make Toronto a bigger tourist attraction.  - Mark

On Friday, February 21 st , we shot the first episode of Boys 2 Men What Makes You A Man for Regent Park TV. The focus of this show is to challenging the common notions of masculinity. The topic that was discussed were issues surrounding ones self-worth Vs. ones self-concept. Our host Horace Spence alongside our panelist Travis Anthony, Ronnie Rowe, and Tha CaptialE shared there views on this topic. The production team involved with filming this episode was Adonis, Isaac, Emanuel, Tyrone and Mark. On Thursday, march 13 th , we shot the second episode of Boys 2 Men was show, What Makes You A Man for Regent Park TV . This is a show where we discuss and challenge common notion of male masculinity. The topic of this show was the “Be a Man” statement. Our host Horace Spence along side our guest Travis Anthony had a great discussion about the effects the “Be A Man” statement has in the male community. Our production team included Mark, Nicole, Immanuel, Pierce, and Joshua.

During the March Break programing, the youth were able to leave the studio and go shoot news clips around the Regent Park area. We decided to go do an interview with one of the employees at the Toronto Birthing Centre. A Birth Centre is a regulated, community-based health care facility that offers women a safe, comfortable, family-centered place to give birth. The facility just opened on January 15 th , 2014 and is the first of its kind in Ontario. In order to give birth at the Toronto Birth Centre you need to be registered with a midwifery group, but there are no extra costs to give birth at the Centre. Nicole Moore

Today's radio show involved a majority of the Regent Park Focus staff in a friendly debate called “The Focus choice awards.” In this radio show each focus member picked a movie that was nominated in the 2014 Oscars, and pitched why it deserved to win or justified why it won. After everyone stated the reasons why their picked film was the best, we all took a consensus vote to narrow down the movies until we had a top 3. It was a lengthy in-depth discussion, we decided that the top 3 movies were: Frozen, Wolf on Wall Street and Gravity.  - Mark

I was joined by a panel, which included: Horace, Travis, Nicole and Josh. The topic of today's radio show was youth homelessness. To start off the broadcast, Travis who is the founder of the homeless incentive gave multiple facts as to how youth in Toronto become homeless: i.e abusive homes, drug abuse, neglect, or because of sexual orientation. It was surprising to see the percentage of homeless youth, as I personally was not aware of the percentage being that high. Our guest Travis also talked about his organization and about all the work he is doing in order to form a greater awareness about the issues being presented. This radio show opened the mindsets of all the participants and made them all aware of the increasing rate of not only homeless youth, but also homeless individuals in general. We were also informed about services available that can temporarily help. - Mark

This Tuesday, March 3rd Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre was very busy producing a radio show for Radio Regent. The topic for this week’s radio show was Alternative Schools. The show was hosted by Essen, and Annie-Marie, and the technician was Isaac. Radio Regent was also joined by four panel guest. We started the show by introducing what an alternative schools is, and talking about the various alternative schools the panel members had gone to and what their experiences were like. We then talked about the purpose of Alternative Schools, which brought up opposing points of view. One of our panelist believed the purpose of alternative schools was to act as a last effort to help kids who dropped out of “regular” schools. Other panelists thought the main aim of alternative schools was to offer different learning experiences for interested students. The panelists also discussed the Afrocentric Alternative School and whether this was a helpful initiative for black students.