Regent Park Focus

“Francophonie” Episode Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with the General and Executive Director of the organization Canoraa Inc., Jacques Yamdjie. Canoraa is a francophone organization focused on offering services and resources to the young community of Toronto. They have dedicated their time to offering workshops, employment resources, volunteer experience, as well as advocating for the awareness and prevention of youth crime in communities. In the episode, we discussed Jacques Yamdjie’s personal experience integrating into Ontario as an immigrant, multiculturalism, francophone services and his thoughts on the changes within the francophone community. Additionally, we talked about their mission and future goals for Canoraa. This organization has done fantastic work in outreaching with the young francophone community of Toronto, allowing them to network with each other and develop more abilities with those learning experiences and the workshops. By: Anne-Julie Guerrier Dat...

April 19th Catch da Flava Blog On tonight’s Catch Da Flava, we spoke about the TTC’s decision to begin randomly testing TTC drivers for drugs and alcohol. This initiative is a response to the fifty-seven Toronto Transit Commission workers who tested positive for controlled substances and alcohol in 2015. The board hearing was held March 23 and employees were informed that funding would be released. The letter to the employees stated that the TTC would be asking the Ontario government to make random drug tests mandatory for all public transit agencies. Random Drug testing will be effective immediately and the penalties for filing one are steep. This week, we also held a discussion about occupy CNN. Occupy CNN is a protest that began April 17, 2016 to object to the media filtering tactics in regards the American Presidential election. The protesters believed that Bernie Sanders was receiving unequal coverage by CNN compared to his opponents. These media tactic are directly influenc...

On tonight’s Catch da Flava, we had a special 30minute segment with Parachute Canada. Parachute Canada is a national charitable organization dedicated to preventing injuries and saving lives. Alex Kelly, who is a senior program coordinator from parachute, came in to talk to us about the work parachute has done in Toronto, and also all across Canada. The main focus of our conversation was on parachutes #safe4life campaign which is a campaign centered on keeping young workers in the workplace. It educates on the rights that youth have in the workplace and also other things youth could do to protect themselves. One common theme that was mentioned was that at times, youth have a fear of speaking up in fear of losing their jobs. One key thing to remember is that youth and everybody else have the right to refuse unsafe work. I personally went through a situation like that at my first job, where I was afraid to say “no” when I was asked to do a precarious task. You Tuber Michael Rizzi who ...

Last week, the Divas Media Group met and focused on their Tobacco Awareness Public Service Announcements. The ladies finished writing the script to their third PSA and made a realistic outline for the fourth PSA. The ladies decided that they wanted to work on the Game Show as their finale project. Near the end of the meeting, the ladies and their youth mentors discussed what they liked about the program and why they joined. Some ladies spoke about how they wouldn’t have joined if their friends hadn’t recommended the place. Next week, we ae having guest speakers from the Canadian Women’s Foundation. The ladies had a group discussion and decided on a few questions to ask the guest speakers. The ladies are very excited to see and be apart of the new changes that may come to the Divas Media Group next year. By: Tusma Sulieman

On Monday March 14th 2016 Regent Park Focus had done a radio documentary on Jerry Martin. Mr. Martin runs a facility called Martin Medical Services in Saskatchewan, his facility focuses on the medical aspect of consuming cannabis but also working and building a connection between the people and his local community that access his services. Our guest Jerry also explained how his facility provides many different services that branch off and correlate to the main focus, which is medical cannabis and cannabis products. Martin Medical Service’s also offers advice with what you are buying and how that might help with your specific need. Jerry explained to us that depending on what type of Cannabis product you’re using it could help with chronic joint pain and cancer. We also got to learn what the actual term medical marijuana meant, which is the care people are taking of growing cannabis. Overall it was great learning experience about the many benefits medical Cannabis has and places like...

Annual General Meeting Blog Friday, April 1 st 2016 Last week, Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Center held The Annual General Meeting. Boards members met and discussed how programming was being implemented and any new changes to past initiatives. The members also received an update on completed project and ones that are in progress. The board members critically analyzed the challenges that have arisen with programming and voted on ways to eliminate the barriers. The board members held a recognition ceremony for those outstanding volunteer in the past year. Some recipients were from Catch da Flava youth radio, Divas Media Group, RPTV and Radio Regent radio show. Congratulations to all the outstanding volunteers who contributed their skills to Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre in the past year. The board acknowledged the highlights of the past year which included winning the National Award for Best Programming Strategies to reach marginalized groups. During the meet...

Divas Media Group Blog Last week, the Divas Media Group met and had the opportunity to attend the Annual General Meeting. The ladies had the opportunity to discuss the format of programming and any changes that they wished to implement. The ladies learned about governance and applied concepts such as consensus and majority rule throughout the meeting. The ladies actively participated in the discussions regarding new opportunities in regards to The Divas Media Group. The Tobacco youth mentors were present and shared the progress of the segments. Maesha, a youth mentor, was the recipient of the Outstanding Volunteer Award. She was acknowledged for her involvement in facilitating and organizing workshops on Tobacco for the Divas Media Group. She has been an amazing addition to the Divas Media Group and the ladies congratulated her. The ladies seem excited for the new initiatives that will be implemented in the next year. Next week, the ladies will be finishing up their second To...

On tonight’s Catch da Flava, we talked about the Black Lives Matter movement in Toronto. It is a movement that begun with the goal of extending Afro-fests music event to two days rather than one, and most importantly they marched on the streets to fight for justice for 45-year old Andrew Loku, who was gunned down by police after he allegedly lunged at an officer with a hammer in his hands. This is just another instance of death caused by police, another black life taken away. One major issue I have is the fact that the SIU is the only governing body that investigates situations involving issues where police are involved in major injuries to civilians, sexual assault or death. The SIU rarely releases any details of any officers involved in a situation with a civilian. A lot of the time, all the media tells us is that the SIU are “looking into the matter”. There is a large amount of secrecy and understandably so, it is to protect their police officers. The BLM wanted the name of the off...