Regent Park Focus

This month as an alternative to our Last Friday community event, we celebrated a Nuit Blanche special. This was held on Saturday on September 29th, at the Daniel’s Spectrum (Regent park Arts and Cultural Centre) 585 Dundas Street.Once again the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre delivered an amazing show for the Regent Park community. The mission to bring the community a hyped up free Nuit Blanche musical show was a great success as the turn out was surprisingly massive and quite unexpected than usual. It made Regent Park’s mark in the map! These musical artists delivered solid performances from the opening act of our very own Focus House Band, followed by Jennifer LFO’s poprocker’s tunes, Aslam Shaheem’s Punjabi dance pop music, and the wickedest dancehall / lovers rock / ska flavour of the Memberz, the drumming geniuses,musical instructors’ Shara Claire and David Aubrey Berger, producer Murr featuring Bengali electronica singer Rosina of LAL, and lastly the adventurous band c...

This past week The Diva Girls were excited to work on the character sketch activity they had started on the previous week but due to some unforeseen circumstances this had to be put on hold. The girls in the program were invited to help out with the Nuit Blanche preparation; therefore, the days activity had to be put on hold. The girls who remained participated in activities that engage them physically and mentally. The girls seemed to enjoy themselves immensely and one girl remarked that this was the first time in The Diva Girls program that they weren't required to learn something. This of course threw me for a loop considering the fact that the activities the girls partook in were filled with learning materials. For example, one of the activities required the girls to think quickly while under pressure and respond actively. During one of these activities I had asked all the girls wearing denim to stand and that alone ensued a five minute conversation. It appeared the girls...

The young ladies in The Diva Girls program showcased their imagination, creativity and writing skills this past Friday when they were asked to write short stories. Using the same character sketch outline and with the help of the instructor the girls wrote stories with unique details. To give you a brief insight of how grand their imagination can stretch, imagine a "five foot female" with "zebra like hair" or better yet a "super smart… soothsayer" that is "beautiful during the day and ugly at night". After coming up with the character sketch and the setting of the story, the girls were then divided into small groups. Each group was given a secret identity for their character. One group whispered in excitement upon finding that there character is an alien, while another could barely contain their excitement as they dived pencil first into brainstorming a storyline for the man who turned into an evil clown at night. The creativity did n...

A very busy month for ‘The Mammal’ (the mobile medialab)… The Mammal as mentioned from some of our blogs, is a 2 rider-bicycle that looks like a boxy looking snail that carries media equipments such as speakers, radio transmitter, soundboards, microphones etc. We take this bike lab into community events and do live broadcasts and radio performances. We can show films on the bikelab as well because we can set it up as a mini stage. The Mammal is soo amazing! We took this bike lab into so many different community events the last 2 months of the summer and did our radio show and live interviews. The Sunday in the Park is one of them, Show Love, and EID, and the Last Friday events are just among the few that got The Mammal some exposure. We had a bunch of hilarity as usual for our radio shows this month. Rob Ford was busy too, with all the scrutiny surrounding him these past few months with regards to his ignorant comments to getting caught reading and driving! As if he had already l...

The Mobile Media Lab also known as "The Mammal" is a customized bike built by students at U of T architect program in partnership with Regent Park Focus. It is a radio studio on wheels that can screen videos as well as provide for various multi-media related functions. For the summer of 2012 we have committed to taking out the bike to as many different community events in Regent Park as we can. One event in particular is a weekly event called Show Love which takes place in South Regent Park. We conducted various interviews at the event to get an understanding of what Show Love is and why the residents and local community agencies decided it was important to have this weekly event for the summer, in Regent Park. In the following link you can listen to our per-produced radio show recorded from the Mobile Media Lab that evening at Show Love: Listen Now: http://www.regentparkfocus.com/radio/media/2012-08-22.mp3 ~ Tyrone

Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre continued its information gathering session on the LiveGreen project with Environmental Defence.  Since 1984, Environmental Defence has been inspiring change by connecting people with environmental issues that affect their daily lives in their homes, workplaces and neighbourhoods. On September 11 2012, Regent Park Focus youth and students from University of Toronto, and random people walking by, were there as Environmental Defence gave the cosmetic industry a "make-over". Environmental Defence brought a mural artist to paint a picture of a female face on a huge canvas, only using make-up products that men and women use everyday.  While the artist was painting this work of art, Environmental Defence volunteers grabbed passersby and asked them few questions regarding the types of make-up products they use, and if they had known the types of toxins in them? And after the passersby (most of the time U of T student...

For the final day of Summer we celebrated with a jam packed night full of music, story telling and free food at our August Last Friday event. The event took place at the Daniels Presentation Centre at 500 Dundas Street East. The event kicked off at 6:30pm with the Catch da Flava Radio crew with "The Mammal" (The Mobile Media Lab Bike), whom interviewed members of the Regent Park community about their Summer experiences, back to school and even talked about the issues with Facebook sharing information of minors under the age of 13. We will be airing the pre-produced Catch da Flava radio show that was recorded at Last Fridays on September 12th, 2012. So be sure to check that out. Some of the musical guests that delighted the crowd, were the Roots Drummers, Jessica Stuart and Trace Minerals. Thanks to Paul Corby, Kerry and Jerry for finding these great talents. ~ Tyrone

The Mobile Media Lab also known as "The Mammal" takes another trip to Regent Park's very own Show Love event. Tonight's show love event celebrated EID. You can listen to the pre-produced Catch da Flava radio show we conducted at the event, interviewing young residents and organizers in the community. Listen Now: http://www.regentparkfocus.com/radio/media/2012-08-29.mp3

Hello fellow supporters! We have officially wrapped up production of Regent Park Community News for the summer! It has been a lot of work and fun and the production crew is very happy to see things come to the end, for the summer anyways. Summer 2012 was very productive for us here at Regent Park Community News. We started the summer by reporting on the closing of Regent Park/Duke of York Public School. The school is closing and the building will be demolished. The Regent Park community came out to say farewell to their most beloved school. Former teachers, students and administrators alike all flocked into the school gym to share memories from years past. Regent Park Community News spoke to some of the current and former students and administrators for a short documentary we are working on -  the documentary is still being edited and will be online very soon! We also put the spotlight on the young women's  and young mens' programs at Regent Park F...

Maggie MacDonald from Environmental Defence Canada (EDC) conducted a workshop with a group of Regent Park Focus youth and staff. This workshop highlighted ways Canadians are exposed to toxins. The discussion focused on ten toxic offenders that are "cancer-causing, hormone-disrupting, and allergy ?inducing substances" (EDC, 2012) found in many Canadian products, but which are banned or restricted in EU products. The toxic ten list includes: Triclosan, artificial musks, parabens, phthalates, petrolatum, formaldehyde releasing agents, sodium laureth sulfate and sodium lauryl sulfate, silicone chemicals, coal tar-derived colours, BHA and BHT. In sum, these products proliferate in various home and personal care products such as shampoo, moisturizer, cosmetics, anti-bacterial cleansers, anti-perspirants, etc. It is scary to realize how much exposure individuals, especially babies and youth, encounter on a daily basis. Fortunately, knowledge is power! ...

Prior to Summer, Regent Park Focus in collaboration with "Youth Assisting Youth" have been working in various projects with youth within the Crescent Town community. Adonis, Emmanuel and Ruhul worked with one of the supervisors, Danny Fee and the youth from the Crescentown community  to develop 15 video projects based on various topics which includes promoting some the aspects of the Crescent Town Community, and drug awareness.  Some of the videos were about resources in the Crescentown community. Also theres a video about bullying and violence, which is basically about how to report a crime, and how to do it anonymously with CrimeStoppers. We also a video that featured some of the youth who were part of the video program.  Another great video was on the game of cricket, in which youth from Crescentown gave basic rules of the game. The youth had an amazing time working on the projects as they were able to develop their skills within the media arts...

This afternoon we took the Mobile Media Lab Bike out for a test run using some new equipment. Positioned just outside of Regent Park Focus at 38 Regent Street we conducted a few test recordings of interviews between each-other and played some live music. Many residents in the community came to check out the bike after hearing the music and live recordings blare from its speakers, out of curiosity as to what the contraption was and what it was designed to do. Several of the designers of the bike were on site to help train some of the youth, volunteers and staff how to use the bike and how to set it up and take it down. It was a pretty fun fill day working with something as unique as the Mammal. Be sure to see the mammal in other sites around Regent Park in the future! ~ Tyrone