Regent Park Focus

This reading week, a team of 8 University of Toronto students came to Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre to engage with the community of Regent Park. On day one, we toured the studio here at Regent Park Focus. We were floored by how much equipment was available to us and how knowledgeable the staff are. After our tour of the centre, we went through a walk around the community. It was during this walk we developed our idea for our pre-recorded radio show. When we arrived back at RPF, we spent our remaining time brainstorming further. The start of day two gave us the title of our pre-recorded radio show: A Walk Through Regent Park. We picked several locations in Regent Park that we’d seen the day before and that we felt were representative of the ongoing changes in this community. Armed with a commitment to showcasing people’s voices, we split into teams, grabbed our recorders, and interviewed community members. Day three was focused on script-writing, audio ed...

This week with the Diva Girls, we talked about consent. A lot of them were aware of what consent was; like consent forms and consent for other things. We watched a video about tea to further explain what consent is and make it easier for those who did not understand or know what consent is. After the video, we had a discussion on what consent is and how much they understood from it. The girls talked about how everything we do needs consent especially when you don’t feel comfortable with something. They understood how it is good to ask someone for permission when you want to do something, it is wrong to assume what other people want and people change their minds about certain things they want to do and it is acceptable. The girls then watched a slam poet talk about consent in seven different forms. After the break the girls were split up into different groups and each one was given a scenario where they had to figure out what needed consent and how the matter could be fixed. They all c...

Radio Regent's Catch da Flava youth radio hosted a Valentine's Day special show with a panel discussion on online dating. The discussion was led by host Judy with guest speakers Tavianne, Judd, Jacob, and Devaughn Stephenson. Local Toronto residents and George Brown college students, each speaker had an interesting take on the new climate of love and romance with the mainstream current of online dating. The first topic discussed was whether panelists believed there was any "shame" involved with online dating. Some had said yes, reasoning that it seems as if a person wasn't able to find romance in the real world and would likely not want to share "how they met" for fear of embarrassment. Another had mixed feelings on the concept, expressing experience with online dating and having met some real ly great people in the process, but also bad experiences. They concluded that it really is what a person makes of it. Another believes that online dating bare...

Hello it’s Jacob from Catch De Flava and on the day of Tuesday February 14th I and my uncle George Sawision former individual Green Party politician did a 30 minute segment on marijuana crackdown issues in the city of Toronto. My uncle has been an activist in the Conservative and Liberals to protect confidential rights and to bring information to voters to be informed before elections. Everyone wants to know where to buy marijuana, know to legally use it, and why isn’t it legalized yet? The age limit of marijuana use is 18-25 years of age and police are applying the judgment of an older law arresting users for either the medical or recreational use. Individuals or gangs are redistributing this legal or illegal product which is frustrating the police as violence and illegal activities are occurring within the city of Toronto. The government is still discussing and studying while time is passing and the problem is they are dealing with more important issues rather than worry about lega...

This week on Radio Regent Louie March from Zero Gun Violence Movement informing us about the movement’s engagements and participation in various communities in Toronto. He also shares few details about the meetings and discussions about the developing strategies to address gun violence concerns in the communities. By spreading awareness positivity and unity among the communities he hope to see an improvement and end to the gun violence. By: Tavianne Jackson Listen to the show here: Download MP3