Regent Park Focus

Catch da Flava’s youth hosted a radio show on October 30th speaking the topic of bullying. Our hosts Shejuanah, Kylie, Thalia and Deborah. They aimed to touch base on the different types of bullying such as verbal, physical, cyber and emotional and also on 3 specific forms bullying that are homophobia, body type and class. They addressed issues surrounding LGBTQ+, whether there has been general acceptance for LGBTQ+ identities in the recent years and other issues that trans and gender non-conforming youth have with bullying, especially in school settings. In terms of class, they spoke about wealth versus poverty, the different income and status every household has. Bullying can also be based on the brands of clothes one may wear, what electronics they have, and how much money their family has in general. The youth also had an opportunity to share some of their personal experiences and how they have realized that they should never be a bully to get rid of one, instead they shoul...

This session was aimed at both editing the scripts  and team  and relationship building.   When the  girls  entered the  room,  they took part in playing some games like broken telephone. They were really interested and involved in playing and this helped as an icebreaker. They were then given a  typed-out  version of their scripts and worked on editing and finalizing it for filming.    Near the end of the class there was a discussion  brought  up about the representation of minorities in the media and how  Hollywood  (when making movies based on books or other forms of media), tends to change characters and do not represent minorities realistically or the way there were written as. An example brought up by one of the girls was the fact that often, girls that are light-skinned get casted to play characters that are supposed to be darker skinned and that this is damaging because it m...

The session started out with an icebreaker, this  week's  icebreaker was a game of charades, which hopefully  helped  them get into character for the acting that was to come after.    The girls worked on completing the scripts and some began filming. The group that did begin filming now have a sense of how they want to film the coming week  and  have also made a list of things they would need for the final version, this being props and  costumes . Some of the girls even began adding little bits into the video that wasn't prepared before but ended up fitting in so well the group added it in. The others groups are also ready to film now and will begin soon. Amna Quaid Azam

Radio Regent’s Catch da Flava youth radio show began its Fall 2018 cycle on Tuesday October 16th. This cycle’s participants and show hosts will be Brintha, Iman, Kylie, Shejuanah, and Deborah. For the first two weeks of this cycle, the group has been preparing for the live shows to begin on Tuesday October 30th. The first week we did a mock live show with a pre-written script about the cannabis legalization that was happening the next day on October 17th. We also had Mike Stroh from mental health advocacy organization Starts With Me on the show as a guest, to discuss the impacts of cannabis on mental health in youth. This gave the participants the chance to see what the general structure of a live show will be like, including with a guest present for the hosts to interview about the mental health aspects of the topic. Once our live shows begin in earnest on October 30th, the hosts will be doing their own research, preparation, and writing for the live shows, and will be speaking a...

This session was used to work on scripts. When the girls first walked  in,  we spoke more about ways to properly write a script. This meant talking about the setting, time, and the meaning of the video they are going to film. After this discussion they all started  to  rewrite the scripts they had planned since many had a different idea they wanted to go with or had decided they wanted to change groups .   I noticed that some of the girls had taken the information that they had obtained during the last couple of classes and put it into creating a topic while others used their personal experiences as one.  By the end of the session, the girls had either finished their scripts or had a good idea of what they wanted to do and say. Some of the girls had also decided that they would come in costume to film. Filming will start on the 19th of October.    Amna Quaid Azam

Diva Girl’s Blog Post – October 5th (Discrimination) The topic for today was discrimination and how it can impact not only the way you see yourself and behave but also how it can impact the way others treat you. When the girls first entered the room, some words were defined, these included words like: racism and stereotypes. Then we started talking about gender discrimination and stereotypes of these shown in the media. A game was played after where the girls would have to change career names like “weatherman”, into gender-neutral names like “weather person”. We talked about how women are almost 4 times more likely to be shown at home in advertisements while the men are the ones working at car dealerships or as CEOs, etc. An Audi commercial was mentioned where they made a correlation between buying a car and getting a girlfriend. Then we looked at how women are portrayed in movies and noticed that recently that although there has been a lot of change in how women are represente...