Regent Park Focus

Monday, February 10, 2020 Today was the fourth week of the Diva's and U of T student's programs. This week they had special guest speakers and did a very outstanding reflective activity. Students started with dividing themselves into groups to talk about 4 different topics: Understanding the religious fabrics of Regent Park Individual expressions/experiences of Faith and Religious Ethnic Discrimination Religion and the built environment Inter and Intra Fath divides and solidarity Afterward, they received and welcomed guest speakers from the "iAm Youth Program" by the JAYU Festival Inc. This program is offered to youth across "underserved communities" across the GTA for a 9-week training for focused on arts and social justice. This is a great program for youth to be involved with education on social problems and how it is involved and can be express through the arts. Two of the guest speakers who came were previous students of this program and the...

Today (Monday, February 3 rd , 2010) was the third week of the Diva's and U of T students program. The group enjoyed good healthy snacks and got working right away. As it has been said before, the group will focus on the topic of Faith, Religion and Spirituality . Their media projects will reflect on those topics and how they play a role in the community and individuals. To get some ideas for the project, there were two studies that were shown today: The Ground Zero Mosque situation   Religion and Cities and how it impacts members of the community A fter that, everyone divided themselves into smaller groups and examined, discussed and presented either one of the case studies. Conversations also focused on personal views of religion, faith and what spirituality means to them. At the end everyone presented their ideas a nd some chose t o open up about their own views of these topics, more specifically their experiences with religion and how other people's view of ...

On Monday, January 20th 2020, a group of students from the University of Toronto gathered to begin the first session of their Youth, Arts and Engagement in Cities program. This program engages students from U of T and the Diva's group to collaborate with each other to work on media projects, in order to raise awareness and tackle social issues around the world or in the Regent Park community. This year they will do a Youth Media Case Study, which will focus on using media projects to express themselves through topics that they felt are important for the community to know. The session began with introductions. Everyone was very excited and participated. The students divided themselves into groups and members of the Divas Group picked a group to work on their projects with. There were five groups, Video/Film, Radio/Podcast, Music, Magazine and interactive art. Each one will be responsible for producing a project based on their category, which we will see by the end of the program in...

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the eighth and ninth session. The next session will be at the Pam McConnell Aquatic Centre on April 8th for the Showcase exhibition. These two sessions were used to add last minute touch ups onto the final pieces both groups had created. This meant making sure they had everything ready and editing what they needed to change. On April 1st, the group presented their ideas to each other and brought examples of what they were going to do, the girls were then thanked and given a gift from Aditi, the proffer of the course. The participants then all went to the event room of the Pam McConnell Aquatic Centre and decided how they would like to layout and present their pieces. For more information on the tasks each group did per week you can click here ! Amna Quaid Azam

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the seventh session. This session began with a skype call from a representative from SAALT (South Asian Americans Leading Together),  Lakshmi Sridaran, who talked about what the organization does and why they were created. SAALT is a non-profit organization that fights for the rights of South Asians in America. She then talked about the Christchurch Mosque Shootings and asked the group if they had anything they would like to talk about in regards to that. There was conversation around islamophobia, double standards, gun control, etc. After this conversation Lakshmi talked a little bit about DACA ( Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ), DAPA ( Deferred Action for Parents of Americans ), and the Muslim ban.  After this conversation, the participants got into their groups and continued...

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the sixth session. At the start of the session Ad it i, the professor and coordinator of the collaboration gave a quick run through of what was to come during the next couple of weeks. The groups were then given time to work on their pieces, many choosing to go outside to film/take pictures.  Then, an icebreaker game was conducted where everyone got into a circle and would pick someone to ask a question to, this person would then pick someone else and ask them a question, this would continue until someone froze or repeated a question already asked. Sumeya ended up the winner! After the game, the UofT students and the girls continued working on their projects. The groups came up with names, these being: The On Air Police, Remembering Regent, Social Fixers, Space Jammers, and the Legacy Leavers. The ...

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the fifth session.  This session was used as a workshop the both groups of participants to work on their project. The participants were introduced to the members of Focus that work in media production who can help them with their project if needed. They then ran through the ideas they had come up with so far, some examples being magazines, a parody commercial, photography and videos, timelines, etc. They were then offered some tips and ways the project could be updated.  They then began planning by writing down what they would be doing and who the audience intended for the piece would be. After some discussion the group decided they would walk around the area and ask the divas to point out important places, this would be part of the project piece. An example of one of the projects is shown bel...

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the fourth session.  Today we were honoured to have guest speaker Lawrence Barriner II from the Centre for Story-Based Strategy all the way from Boston.  After we ate a snack and settled down, we were guided in a one minute breathing meditation. While some of the girls struggled to keep their giggles down, we learned how hard it can be to quiet the mind and focus sometimes.  Lawrence talked about how memes act as containers for meaning and we all laughed at some of our favourite memes together. We then split into our research project groups for our activity.  Using our chosen topics we created a bunch of hilarious memes and GIFs that get our story across in relatable and playful ways. Lawrence and his meditation frog are more than welcome to come back anytime!  Melody M...

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the third session.  This session was focused on creating groups. The students from UofT were put into groups beforehand by their professor, Aditi, and given topics. After having the option of switching topics and groups they were given the job of trying to get the young women from focus interested enough in their topic to join their group. After the girls were put into their groups they were greeted by Alexa Mills, an editor from the Washington City Paper who talked to them about journalism and how multiple individuals can tell the same story differently. She read through a few articles and then lead an interviewing activity. For this activity the groups were to pick one interviewee, the other members were the interviewers. They were to create two questions for the interviewee and t...

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the second session. This session the girls offered a tour to the students and staff at UofT. They took them to places they usually hang out at, these being the Regent Park Community Centre and Daniels Spectrum. They then showed the group parts of the community that had been revitalized and explained how it now works in the community.                                                                             After returning back to focus, they worked on an ice breaker. This ice breaker was one where the group had to create a paper airplane, write their names and 2 questions they had for the finder. They then threw it aroun...

Regent Park Focus is partnering with the Youth, Arts, and Engagement Program at the University of Toronto to produce a media product that is based on the community. This is the first session. This sessions the girls were able to meet with the staff and students attending the Youth, Arts, and Engagement program at the University of Toronto. The session began with Aditi, the professor of the program talking about things to expect and things they students from UofT have done thus far. Then the girls and students got into randomly assigned groups and began creating a map of how they got to where they are. Although the question was worded in a way that was open, almost all the participants talked about how they got to focus on that day. The participants then shared what they route, their journey, and what they learned. After that a hashtag was created. To do this, the participants worked in the groups that were made before to not only create a hashtag but to also, sell it to the ot...