University of Toronto Reading Week

By -

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 editing, and generally bringing the show to life. Working collaboratively to research background information on all the locations we conducted interviews and bridging them together into a coherent script was no small feat! Neither was editing so many interviews! Despite that, we made time to walk around Regent Park and administer surveys about resident’s use of RPTV – we hope the results will be helpful in getting people to tune in.


Our fourth and final day involved quick prep for our live show Students Speak: University Admissions and Life on Campus. The show went on at 2pm and for a full hour we conducted a panel giving tips, tricks, and the insider perspective on what life is like at the University of Toronto. After the live show and a quick lunch, we holed up in the editing room and wrapped production on A Walk Through Regent Park.


We are so thankful to have had the opportunity to work with Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre this week. We were welcomed more warmly, and learned far more, than we ever could have expected. Regent Park, you haven’t seen the last of us!

Listen to their radio show here:


Download MP3

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Camping with the Divas Girls Group

By -
Image
This past week the girls group headed to Guelph for a three day retreat to celebrate the end of this year’s program. It rained almost the entire time, but we still managed to have a great time! For many of the girls it was the first time they had been out of the city. They were excited to go canoeing, take part in a scavenger hunt and spend time in the conservation area exploring and drawing in their sketch books. Because of the rain we also came up with lots of creative ways to have fun inside. We painted tote bags, learned to cook lots of delicious food, and put on a “Kids Canadian Idol” show. The girls all said they wished the trip could have been longer and were already planning next year’s trip on the way home.
Read more

Catch da Flava - Discussing Mental Helath and Peacebuilders

By -
Image
On today's Catch da Flava radio show for Tuesday, January 14, 2020, we focused on two separate but intertwined issues. They were youth mental health and the youth justice system. Our hosts were Shajuanah and Jamelia with co-hosts Kaila, Thalia, and Fazra. Our guests for the mental health segment was Michelle Cauch, a Student Success Advisor at Centennial College and Michelle Galeotalanza, a mental health professional and professor at Centennial College. They discussed what is mental health, why is youth mental health important, why is youth mental health different from the other age groups, what are the major youth mental health issues, where should the youth get help, how can they seek trusting professionals to speak to on issues of mental health? These were just a few of the many interesting topics and questions we discussed. Our guest for the next segment was Rachelle Bloomfield, a staff, leader, and counselor at Peacebuilders. Peacebuilders is a nonprofit organization...
Read more

Radio Regent News and Views - August 6th, 2021

By -
In this episode of Radio Regent News and Views, we hear two reports by student groups currently working at Focus Media. Each summer, youth community members are welcomed into the Centre, given access to multi-media technology and encouraged to create content with a local community news emphasis. on today’s show, one group interviews Liberal Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre, Marci Ien, about homelessness in the community; and another group presents a report on the state of maintenance and general safety in St. Jamestown residential buildings. In addition, we’ll hear a migrant worker tell his story of being wrongfully repatriated to his country of origin, unfortunately an all-too common occurrence in Canada.
Read more