Regent Park Focus

Divas Session Sexual Health On June 29 th, 2018, Lisa Parke from The Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (BLACK CAP) facilitated a workshop on sexual health. The session began with a check-in, and then a conversation around sexual health and STI’s; and how it is transmitted to the body. Lisa mentioned that some people who have STIs don’t know that they are infected as there are no symptoms associated with STIs. Lisa also talked about HIV and AIDS and the myths and the stigmas associated with the disease. In addition, stats on HIV and AIDS were shared as well. Shortly after the conversation the girls participated in activities on STIs. The girls did an amazing job on the activities! The girls took away some insightful information from today’s session. The session ended with a comment from Lisa: if a person is sexually active, it is very important that he or she get tested to know his or her status.

For this edition of Health Talks Youth Radio, we had our wonderful panel discussion with our youth participants discussing how they navigated through school stress while school was in. We chatted about the issue only to celebrate that it’s finally over. Some of the questions we explored were: What’s a way school stress has affected you emotionally? I’m talking about how it has made you feel, the anxiety, the sorrow, the anger, the frustration. What’s the worst and best emotions from the school term for you? So how’s school stress affected you psychologically? This can be something like how it makes you doubt your ability to finish assignments, to do well in exams- all that. Or what about some stories you heard from friends and classmates? Sometimes, because the body and mind are connected, we can have physical symptoms from school stress. How has school stressed you out- did you have to have all-nighters, difficulty sleeping because of worry, physical weakness trying to keep ...

For our June 26th edition of Catch da Flava Youth Radio, we introduced our first half with our topic school stress, to celebrate the end of it now that school’s over and we can enjoy our summer. We’ve interviewed a handful of youth who were either in school or fresh out of it, and how they dealth with school stress. We played as a pre-recorded interview and we asked them all the same five questions which were: How stressful would you consider school, how is your school work load? Do you think it is manageable? What are some ways you cope with high levels of school responsibilities? What would you suggest they do different in school to help kids with their stress levels? Do you ever indulge in unhealthy habits because of your stress levels? Like overeating, video game playing etc. What are your habits and why do you think you gravitate to them? What are some healthy ways to manage school stress? In light of the prevalent issue of school stress, we’ve noted that several re...

Date: June 25th, 2018 Hosts : Jeneace & Rhiannon Guests : Faith, Giselle, Trystan Topic : Pride, LGBTQ+ Identities and Realities and Allyship This week, Jeneace and Rhiannon hosted a Pride episode on Pride, LGBTQ+ Identities and Realities and Allyship . Jeneace began with a brief history of Pride in Toronto, outlining how the 1981 Bathhouse raids in Toronto that saw police storm 4 gay bathhouses and arrest about 300 men sparked protests that evolved into Toronto Pride. She also discussed Black Lives Matter Toronto’s successful protest at Pride in 2016 that challenged the organization’s racism and police presence at Pride. We began our interviews with Giselle from SOY H.E.A.T. Giselle and the hosts had an honest conversation about the struggles queer and trans youth face coming to terms with who they are and thriving. From wide spread transphobia and ignorance about different queer, trans and non-binary identities to the many risks of coming out before you’r...

Divas Session June 22, 2018 Relationships The girls had a great session this week! Monica Gore, a 614 Salvation Army community worker from Regent Park, facilitated a workshop on relationships. Although the girls are not dating yet, today’s discussion was very relatable with respect to other forms of relationships. Monica talked about relationships with: partners, spouses, family members, siblings, friends and others; and within those relationships you can have unhealthy, healthy or co-dependent relationships. A person’s self-worth and self-esteem are factors that sustain relationships; so if a person isn’t feeling good about him/her self or have low self-esteem he/she is likely to be in an unhealthy relationship. Monica then read some relationship scenarios relating to self-worth and self-esteem, where the girls had to decide if the relationship was healthy or unhealthy. The girls did an amazing job with the scenarios! The girls were then divided into two groups where they h...

For our June 21st episode of Health Talks Youth Radio, we chatted about the Disney classic “Air Bud” about how a furry friend wanders into the life of young Josh Framm and changes the community for the better. After losing his father, Josh and his mother and baby mother move to another town and Josh is lost and sad about the change. With a huge love of basketball, he finds he is unable to make the team and can’t fit into other teams like band. He stays on the basketball team as the waterboy, becoming an observer of the team and realizing the caretaker used to be a pro basketball player, he soon decides to try out after the influence of a stray dog that follows him around. Realizing Buddy is great with the basketball, Josh plays his new friend. This movie has been impactful when it comes to promoting health and sports among youngster but especially highlighting the therapeutic benefits of having a dog to restore one’s faith and emotional wellbeing. It’s Josh’ friendship with Buddy...

For our June 19th episode of Catch da Flava Youth Radio, we shared a pre-recorded clip for our first half. Interviewing a few youth participants, we asked them a few questions when it comes to issues of eating habits. Eating habits are an important topic for youth to consider because it is usually the time when people start to develop eating disorders so understanding how they eat and their views of healthy eating habits is important to know how we can monitor our own views of eating. When it comes to healthy eating, youth tend to have similar ideals and definitions on what are healthy eating habits and healthy foods. The participants seem to enjoy talking about their favourite junk food often, having very clear and very specific junk foods to highlight. Generally, it seems that our youth participants are quite healthy and eat fairly balanced. There were a few questions asked, which include: 1. Do you consider your eating habits “healthy”? What’s your definition of healthy eat...

For our June 19th episode of Health Talks Youth Radio, we had our youth panel discussion to talk about our eating habits and how we enjoy eating. We explore the different ways we eat, especially given our diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We come from different cultures, different food preferences, and have different relationships to food. We try to explore how our food habits are the same and how they are different through our panel discussion. Some of the questions we addressed were: We’re all coming from different cultures and upbringing? What’s your favourite cultural food from your own culture? Can you describe how it tastes and how it’s prepared? What’s your favourite food in general? Why? What’s your favourite dessert and why? What’s the worst food dish you’ve ever heard of, and what was it? What’s an amazing food dish you’ve heard of and what is it? An amazing restaurant or franchise you want to visit? We chatted a lot more about different foods and our shar...

For this edition of Health Talks Youth Radio, we talked about the movie "Remember the Titans" and how the power of sports can really help change a community for the better by applying the principles of the game to interpersonal relationships. “Remember the Titans” is about the first football team that integrated black and white students in Virginia. The movie shows that through sports and in this case, football, working as a sports team helped teach students how to unite not just as team players, but as a human collective. It shows how a sports team really did change humanity for the better. A few of the questions asked during the show were: In the beginning we see a team that’s all white, and then cuts to when segregation is being lifted and they hire a Black head coach, so how did you think it would work out did you predict it would work out pretty much the way it did or did you have another idea in mind? What are your thoughts? How do you think the little girl who ...

For this episode of Health Talks Youth Radio, host Diamond shared on the topic of healthy eating and good nutrition and how kids these days can go about doing that with the hectic lives they live. She discussed the importance of vitamins and minerals in one’s diet, like having calcium for example for strong bones and healthy white teeth especially because young people are still growing so it would be an essential for their diets. Diamond looks to address Millenials in this conversation, asking questions that include: How do you think today's youth view health and nutrition as a whole? Do we as a generation seem to take our health of granted? When does healthy eating become dangerous? What are the issues and problems associated with eating too much junk food and not enough healthy foods. There’s little use denying the fact - social media affects your health. Be it physically, psychologically, or a dangerous combination of the two, our addiction to our screens can have so...

For our June 12th episode of Catch da Flava Youth Radio, host Diamond introduced the show with a segment interviewing her mom Rona Bailey who happens to be a her mom and the Student Nutrition Coordinator at Nelson Mandela Park Public School, which is just next door to our radio studio. Rona has worked for years a nutritionist, preparing meals for kids and young ones- even preparing meals for child stars on hit TV show “Degrassi”! So she has a great deal of experience when it comes to sharing how kids can learn to eat better. Diamond had a lot of great questions to ask Rona about her role to assist in the healthy lifestyles of students. Some of the questions Diamond asked were: What is your role as a student nutrition coordinator at Nelson Mandela Park Public School? What do you do? As the student nutrition coordinator you can't just whip up anything, there are some guideline that have to be met. What are the requirements relating to food and nutrition in schools? Some ki...

Date:  June 11, 2018 Hosts :  Jeneace Guests :  Frédérique the Director of Health Promotion with Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights and Jackie Coakes from Toronto Public Health Topic :  Sexual and Reproductive Health This week, Jeneace led a conversation on Sexual and Reproductive Health with special guests from Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights and Toronto Public Health . With Fred from Action Canada, we talked about why comprehensive sexual education and sexual health resources empower people to lead happy and healthy lives and have safer sex. We talked about the stigma surrounding abortion, the most common gynecological procedure in Canada, and the history and struggle that led to the legalization of abortion in Canada although access to abortion remains unevenly distributed across the country to this day.  In the second half of the show, Jeneace talked to Jackie about Toronto Public Health’s work, STI information th...

For this edition of Health Talks Youth Radio, host Travis introduced us to the topic for this show which was the movie “Little Giants” starring Ed O’Neil as the bullying big brother Kevin and Ricky Moranis as tender-hearted devoted little brother Danny. Coming from a small town, both boys had a love for football, but Kevin excelled in the sport while Danny was cast off to the sidelines. As adults, Kevin continues to succeed, owning a car dealership and being the coach of peewee football in their small town after having a successful career in football. Danny’s daughter Becky aka Ice Box grows up with a strong love of football too but doesn’t end up getting chosen. Consequently, Becky is motivated to play and gets her dad to coach a new team called the “Little Giants”, a group of misfits in the neighbourhood he has to somehow whip into shape and teach football to and hopefully win. Eventually after all the heated sibling rivalry, Kevin ends up betting his car dealership and Da...

For this edition of Health Talks Youth Radio, host Diamond introduces the topic of the upcoming elections for our show, now that the provincial elections for Ontario will come up June 7th. In discussing the role of youth, Diamond mentions that youth barely make it out to the polls and not often part of the voting demographic despite being legally able to vote. As a consequence, their voice is not often heard, yet their potential impact could be great. Diamond mentions that In the 2015 federal election, voter turnout among youth 18 to 24 went up by an impressive 18 per cent, but overall voter participation among youth remained nine per cent below the average for all other voters. That speaks volumes to how much we need to have our voice heard and exercise doing so. Some of the questions we asked our panelists were: 1. What are your thoughts on youth not voting when it come to elections in general? Do you vote? 2. It’s easy for young people to be cynical about politics. On...

For our June 5th edition of Catch da Flava Youth Radio, our host Diamond introduced representatives from Counterpoint, Blanca Alvarado, Clara Castillo, and Bruce Scavuzzo to talk about the services available at the organization. Counterpoint Counselling and Educational Cooperative is an organization whose mission is to provide holistic programming for men, women and children that transforms the causes and consequences of domestic violence. To achieve this mission, they offer educational programming to perpetrators of domestic violence, and provide survivors with a comprehensive system of support. Counterpoint also contributes to community development efforts through community education and coalition buildings. Welcoming into studio, Diamond asked them a few questions which include: 1. Can you tell us about Counterpoint and what the organization does? 2. What are the resources for women trying to overcome circumstances of intimate partner abuse? How do you help children ...