Regent Park Focus

Be Scene Youth have just finished launching Rebellion Issue. It is the 6th issue in Be Scene’s History. Rebellion features some amazing creative writing and a graffiti photoessay against the backdrop of a rebellious layout design. Of course, what does it all mean anyway, “rebellious”? Well, you will have to check out the zine for that. Copies are around at Regent Park Focus, Flemo Health Centre and TNO’s Youth centre. It is coming to more places around Flemo Park, T-Park and O’Connor communities soon. In the meantime, get your digital copy here . At the latest event this past Thursday with about 25 people at TNO’s youth centre, we distributed the fresh copies, got together for some food, had lots of fun and joined Making Noise! Gender Violence and Community Accountability Media Project (GVCAMP) and TNO’s VOICES. Making Noise! is an initiative of Urban Alliance for Race Relations. VOICES is a young women’s group that meet every Thursday at TNO’s Youth Centre. Ashley Alexis McFar...

Be Scene + Voices + the Gender Violence Media Project = Awesome! Right now Be Scene magazine is smack in the middle of a joint program with Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office's girls group 'Voices' and the Gender Violence Media Project. We are making media all together!! (It's great). For five Thursdays the Be Scene crew will be on site at the TNO Youth Space behind the East York Town Centre, talking about gender violence and anti-oppression. Though its a serious subject, we've created a space where we are able to talk from our hearts and laugh when the time is right. After all some stereotypes about women and gender are so ridiculous they are funny! We have an incredible group of girls (on the busiest week so far we've had 27 participants!), and awesome facilitators as well. On our team are Azza Abarro, the youth worker from the Flemingdon Health Centre who has given so much to Be Scene over the past several years, Ashley Alexis McFarlane and Helen Y...

Michelle Kay Gives Be Scenesters the Low-down on Blogging Michelle Kay, the Online News Editor for Yahoo and the new Webstories Editor for Shameless Magazine paid Be Scene’s editorial committee a visit this past Thursday. With piles of magazines in hand, and a nifty sheet of resources to check out, she led a fabulous workshop about blogging and online presence for independent magazines. Many tips were given, and good chatting went on about current stories in process for the next issue (themed: rebellion and resistance) and how they may translate into content for the blog. One of the most useful things we took away with us was the importance of keeping up with social networking platforms. In other words, that tools like Facebook groups, blogs and Twitter can and should be used with diligent regularity in order to solidify a readership base. That befriending other youth organizations and publications can create a useful online community. And that Twitter specifically shouldn’t jus...

Be Scene at the Toronto Zine Library! For magazinesters like ourselves a trip to the Toronto Zine Library was just what the doctor ordered last Sunday. It gave us a chance to do some research into the process of making a magazine that isn’t necessarily meant for large distribution, or to serve the needs of its audience, but rather as a personal project for the artist/writer themselves. Zine experts Sara and Amy gave us an overview of the history of zines, how they started as little booklets sent in the mail to and from fans of science fiction about their topic of interest, and have grown into a vibrant and subject diverse DIY (do-it-yourself) industry. Today there are zine fairs in many major cities. In Toronto, Canzine is a festival/meeting place for independent artists/writers/publishers that happens every October. Hmmm, come to think of it, this may be a great venue to distribute some of Be Scene’s mags. Learning about the history of zine making was interesting, but the mo...