Farewell Oak Street, produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 1953, presents a before-and-after picture of the Regent Park development in the 1950s. The film, which was used as a propaganda tool by the Housing Authority of Toronto to gain support for the slum clearance projects of the time, tells the tales of the Bennett, Tweed, Jake, and Brown families that once lived on Oak Street, south-east of Parliament and Gerrard.
The film begins with the Browns — a family of five, two parents and three children — who share their living quarters with six other families. Farewell shows the Browns cooking, eating, laundering clothing, and sleeping all in one room while also dealing with the vermin found in the area. Aging and malfunctioning infrastructure, pests, and ever-increasing crowding were also a common sight on Oak Street. These were some of the factors that led to the neighbourhood being characterized, in the film, as “not quite a slum, but close.”
As living conditions worsened on Oak Street and the surrounding area, plans emerged to address the city’s housing shortages. Previously, low-income families had to share their living quarters with boarders in order to be able to afford their homes, food and other expenses. In the proposed Regent Park, families like the Bennetts, Tweeds, Jakes, and Browns would be able to afford homes with bedrooms for each family member, a kitchen, and living spaces thanks to newly-built infrastructure and rent-geared-to-income housing units.
Scene from ‘Farewell Oak Street’
Regent Park, then branded as a modern public housing development that offered its residents “privacy, light and space,” was the City’s response to living conditions in Cabbagetown South. Studies on housing conditions in the Cabbagetown and Moss Park areas, conducted by Ontario Lieutenant-Governor Herbert Bruce and his committee in 1934, proposed the demolition of substandard homes with new public housing units. Public policy and housing betterment discourses of the time largely argued that by recasting the built form, the lives of residents in the new Regent Park would be socially, economically and morally transformed. Farewell Oak Street used film and photographs to illustrate what the outcome of the new development could be, albeit in a manicured and over-simplified manner.
Some 30 years later, the narrative that once described Oak Street as “one of Toronto’s oldest streets, and not one of its best” began to re-emerge in the once highly praised Regent Park.
Over time, negative stereotypes had emerged about the neighbourhood. They characterized the community and its residents as dangerous, blighted, and crime-ridden.
Beginning in the mid-2000s, the revitalization efforts of Toronto Community Housing, the City of Toronto, and Daniels Corporation, which are currently making progress on Phase 3 of the project, have attempted to re-brand, or de-stigmatize, the Regent Park community through its implementation of a social mix/urban renewal strategy.
But have these efforts to re-brand the community through the social mixing of residents actually worked?
Several goals were established at the beginning of the redevelopment project that were intended to help improve housing conditions in Regent Park. Among these were reconnecting the neighbourhood to the surrounding street grid, demolishing and reconstructing all buildings and townhouses in Regent Park, and, most importantly, deconcentrating poverty by implementing a social mix model in the redevelopment (i.e. creating both subsidized apartment buildings and market condos within the area).
The social mix model — which seeks to combine residents from different socioeconomic, ethno-racial and housing tenures — has been successful in altering the narratives associated with the Regent Park neighbourhood city-wide.
According to our evaluation of news media accounts of Regent Park since the 1970s, there has been a large shift in the discourses used in articles reporting on the neighbourhood over the last decade.
In the 1980s and 1990s, terms such as “drug-infested,” and “ghetto,” as well as Mayor June Rowland’s infamous description of Regent Park as a “crack capital,” were used regularly to describe the neighbourhood and its residents.
But our analysis shows that a shift has occurred since the beginning of the redevelopment in the mid-2000s, with such narratives not as commonly present in the media. Reporting now largely focuses on the logistics of revitalization, perceptions of, and attitudes toward, the redevelopment, and the effects of the project on Regent Park community members.
Yet can we assume that the City’s attempts to “re-brand” Regent Park by implementing a social mix model have been successful? And does this new public image align with the lived experiences of the pre-revitalization residents of the neighbourhood?
The social mix model assumes that by de-concentrating poverty, public housing residents will benefit from cross-class interactions. Such interactions are often said to provide low-income residents with opportunities for upward social mobility and increased social capital.
Existing research, however, does not support these assumptions. In 2017, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Alberta and Ryerson University examined how cross-class interactions occurred on the ground in Regent Park. Sixty individuals who lived in Regent Park during the revitalization process and 50 new, middle-income residents were interviewed.
The study found that cross-class interactions were, in fact, not occurring between the two sets of residents, with the reasoning being attributed to an “us vs. them” dynamic rooted in class differences. In the interviews, some long-term community members described the influx of new residents as a process of “colonization” and “invasion.” Some residents even discussed feelings of no longer belonging to the community, as previously-existing social norms were disrupted — an effect of a process known as “affective displacement.”
Affective displacement, also known as “positive gentrification” or “gentrification without displacement,” is the process by which neighbourhoods with newly increased housing densities provide space for middle-class in-movers without displacing the existing population, therefore resulting in an increase to the total population.
One of the consequences of affective displacement is that residents experience a loss of sense of place due to changes to both the built environment and existing social norms – a response which has been reported among some long-term residents of Regent Park.
REGENT PARK FOCUS
Regent Park Focus is a community media arts centre established in the neighbourhood in 1990. Through a variety of programs, the organization seeks to empower marginalized residents and underrepresented groups in Regent Park to combat negative stereotypes associated with the neighbourhood.
Since 2019, the Diva Girls at Regent Park Focus, a workshop group that explores issues through creative arts and media production with young women from the neighbourhood, partnered with Dr. Aditi Mehta and students at the University of Toronto. In this partnership, young women from the Diva Girls have worked with students to create media projects about Regent Park and their lived experiences in the neighbourhood.
In the first year of the partnership, the projects focused on the effects of revitalization on the young women and other members of the community. The explored the mainstream media’s stereotypes about Regent Park; changes in the neighbourhood’s rap and hip hop culture attributed to redevelopment; access to amenities in the area; and stories of moving and displacement, and memorialization.
One of the common themes of the projects was that of affective displacement.
In an interview conducted by The Social Fixers, a group exploring the multi-dimensional histories of displacement, moving and social mixing in Regent Park, one of the Diva Girls noted her feelings of a loss of sense of place. “I don’t remember much of my childhood,” she said. “[M]aybe if nothing had changed, I would remember more.”
In a second project by Remember Regent, a group exploring themes of memorialization, another Diva Girl wrote, “Buildings were being crushed to fit more people in the community. People from outside the community came in waves but no one really talked about it. Every year with new projects our memories were pushed further and further away”.
The Legacy Leavers, a group consisting of two Diva Girls and two U of T students, created a media project that aimed to counter the narrative of stigmatization in order to show how Regent Park had a strong and flourishing community prior to the redevelopment. The project used photography and videography to show images that held meaning to the young women and quotes that discussed their lived experiences, particularly noting how the perceived benefits of social mix did not match up with the results in practice. They noted that the neighbourhood’s sense of community had long pre-dated revitalization. The redevelopment, they wrote, “just gave the community a new space to play and be seen.”
In October 2019, the documentary film, Farewell Regent, debuted, showing community-based building and resilience efforts in Regent Park. The documentary shares the stories of folks in the neighbourhood and the ongoing activism taking place as the largest public housing redevelopment in North America unfolds.
Community-based efforts to counter the narratives of stigmatization in the neighbourhood have long been present, some of which influenced the City’s intention to redevelop Regent Park in the first place. As noted in Farewell Regent, one of these efforts included visualizations of urban renewal by residents, for residents, before the City’s redevelopment plans even existed.
Through these efforts, the individual experiences of folks in Regent Park have challenged the assumption that the discourses and narratives associated with the neighbourhood have changed. In the film, one long-term resident questions processes of change by asking, “What would be the difference if you’re living in an old building or a new building? You’re a person. You’re going to change yourself. You don’t need a new building to change you.”
As the City, TCH and, Daniels continue to make progress on the revitalization, some residents have expressed concern over how their community will function over time, noting that changes have already occurred. Community building and resilience efforts in Regent Park will no doubt play out differently, but what will that `new normal’ look like? “The organized tenant body that we used to have was unified,” a former resident tells the filmmakers. “As the community is dispersed, it’s really hard to get that organized voice.”
Much like in Farewell Oak Street, Farewell Regent shares the names and faces of the very people impacted by the revitalization, only this time also exploring the difficult issues and emotions that arise as a result of a complex redevelopment process. The lived experiences of folks documented in these stories contradict the public and media narrative that the revitalization has altered the image of Regent Park and its residents. As the redevelopment process continues to unfold, we can only question if these contradictions may also exist elsewhere in the process.
Lena Sanz Tovar is a Venezuelan-Canadian Master of Science in Planning Candidate at the University of Toronto, currently researching intensification focused redevelopment and lived experience in Toronto. Follow her on twitter at@lenasanztovar.
Keisha St. Louis-McBurnie is an emerging urban planner completing her Master of Science in Planning (MScPl) at the University of Toronto, where she researches alternative practices for inclusive city-building at the intersections of housing, community economic development and land use planning. Follow her ontwitter at @KeishaStLouis
Lena and Keisha are both researchers with a Regent Park indicators project funded by the Metcalf Foundation, with additional support from MITACS, the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Shauna Brail, associate professor at the Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto Mississauga. The project will culminate in a report, to be published in Spacing, with an accompanying online database of previous research about Regent Park.
U of T students and Regent Park teens team up to bust stereotypes, tell stories of a changing neighbourhood
With a front row seat to the revitalization of the east Toronto neighbourhood, the Grade 8 student has seen countless changes over the years. She's literally watched the condo towers rise around her.
But the downside of shiny and new is it becomes harder to remember what was there before.
“It has taken memories away because I'm forgetting what was there,” Abdi says.
For the past few months, Abdi has been working with University of Toronto students to preserve her memories of the neighbourhood, while looking to inform new residents of Regent Park’s history.
They’ve created an interactive timeline of Abdi’s life that coincides with major developments during the Regent Park revitalization project.
Ontario Supporting Diverse and Inclusive Communities: A visit from the Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
November 6, 2017 |
Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration
Laura Albanese, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, was at Radio Regent today to announce the first recipients of the Multicultural Community Capacity Grant program.
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) is receiving support through the program for a civic engagement project to engage newcomer youth through multimedia resources that promote social inclusion and participation in community life. Radio Regent is a program of Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre).
2016
Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre gets lease extension
Paul Gallant | Wednesday, February 10, 2016
With its home secure for another five years, the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre is planning to expand its TV production capabilities to reach even more of the downtown neighbourhood.
City council voted last week to extend the lease of the media centre, a grassroots youth organization that engages young people through participation in media arts activities such as live radio broadcast, storytelling, poetry and music, arts instruction, music recording, photography, and other arts activities. The nominal rent on the 3,729-square-foot basement space is only $2 a year, though the operating expenses are estimated to be close to $40,000—a big chunk of the not-for-profit’s annual budget.
“It’s great that they’ve renewed our lease but it certainly doesn’t take off the financial pressure to do what we do,” says executive director Adonis Huggins. Much of the funding comes on a project-by-project basis.
The centre was founded in 1990 as something of an antidote to negative media coverage of Regent Park, often depicted as especially crime-ridden. The initiative has evolved as has the community, which has been transformed oer the last few years with a major revitalization that’s razed most of the dilapidated 1940s and ’50s-era community housing. A community newspaper led to radio and TV programs that cover local news and concerns.
“Regent Park seemed to be all things bad ,and the community felt that. We wanted to give people a different picture of Regent Park, including themselves,” says Huggins.
Until 2011, the program was located in the basement of a Toronto Community Housing Corporation building. The existing space is smaller but better designed for the centre, whose 250 members create more than 50 programs.
Currently working with Rogers to get a digital channel that can broadcast more content to more residents, Huggins suggests that there is a market for hyper local broadcasting. “People become more engaged in their neighbourhood if they can see themselves, if they know where to go to for things they’re interested, they’d be more engaged in the services in their neighbourhood if they knew what they were,” he says.
Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Adonis Huggins
2013
Stories @CSI: Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Putting a Lens on The Positive with Community-Created Media
Submitted by Barnabe Geis
April 9, 2013 |
CSI Regent Park
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)
By Lisa Ferguson, CSI Reporter
There is no doubt Regent Park is in a period of massive transformation. The revitalization of Regent Park is converting what was once Canada's oldest and largest social housing complex into a mixed-income, mixed-use community.
But change is happening beyond the cranes and bulldozers, and has been happening long before construction started.
"I think if you search you could see many, many examples of the change that residents themselves are making," says Adonis Huggins.
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Adonis is the Executive Director of Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), a new media, radio and television arts broadcast centre that empowers community members, youth in particular, with arts and participatory media skills to communicate local needs and priorities.
Started in 1990 in the basement of a since-demolished Toronto Community Housing apartment building, Focus was part of the Ontario government's FOCUS Community Program aimed at promoting community health in nine vulnerable communities. Funding flowed through the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
From a new state-of-the-art production studio (just around the corner from their office in the Centre for Social Innovation Regent Park in the new Daniels Spectrum arts and cultural centre), Adonis explains that video production was originally used to engage youth because it fascinated them. Becoming camera operators, directors, producers, writers, actors and reporters provided the youth with an outlet to discuss issues relevant to them and the changes they wanted in their community.
More importantly, they shared positive stories about the community. "This community was very stereotyped," Adonis explains. "It was really negatively perceived. But residents had a different perception. And we wanted to give them a voice to be able to represent their own community."
From video, Focus grew to experiment with other storytelling media. Despite numerous successes—including program graduates entering or studying to enter the media industry—the organization has also faced many challenges, including the loss of one-third of its funding when the FOCUS program was cut. But Focus is "still here," Adonis says, laughing.
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Studio "Not only are we still here, but we're still growing and developing. We could have not built a TV station, and saved all the money, and reduced staff, but we did the opposite: poured the money in, hired more staff, and moved into this space—it's risk-taking, for sure."
Through a new partnership with Rogers TV, Focus will soon start programming RP60, Regent Park's own television station. This dedicated, closed-circuit, text-based message board will help improve information flow in the community. As Adonis explains, it's difficult to keep a community as big and as culturally diverse as Regent Park well informed. "People who've lived here for years don't know some of the organizations, the services in the community, the opportunities available to them, the events going on in their arts and cultural centre, and what changes are happening, particularly with the redevelopment, until it actually hits them."
After two decades of sharing Regent Park's positive and empowering stories within the community, Focus is now fulfilling its vision of showcasing this culturally dynamic neighbourhood to the rest of Toronto by producing Regent Park Community TV, or RPTV, a one-hour weekly program about Regent Park, to be aired (beginning May 2013) on Rogers' Community 10 (accessible throughout the Greater Toronto Area). Additionally, the station will produce shows about Regent Park to be broadcast on the internet.
RPTV is also meant to build social inclusion within Regent Park. As the redevelopment process triples Regent Park's population, Focus hopes RPTV will maintain a sense of community and empower residents to participate in and contribute to the growth of their community. "People will tune in to know who their neighbours are, their customs, their languages, who's doing what, how people are making change, and how they could get involved."
Community members are invited to collaborate with Focus staff to bring their show ideas to life. "What it's all about," Adonis stresses, "is the community seeing this place as their place and not something where they have to ask to get involved. We want them to tell us what they want to do."
If there is one thing that Adonis has learned about making social change, it's that it must be rooted in the community. "We always wanted to go in the direction of reaching a wider audience, having more impact. So the question was, 'How do we get there?' Having a community that's on board, that has a vision of where they want to go empowers you to say to your partners, 'This is something the community wants.'"
Regent Park Community TV Needs Funding to Launch
Local youth to steer programming of one-stop venue for residents and non-residents
April 16, 2013
City Centre Mirror
By Justin Skinner
Regent Park's ongoing revitalization has seen the community welcome a new grocery store, a bank and plenty of other firsts.
Now, the downtown neighbourhood is coming closer to introducing its own television station.
Regent Park Focus (now Regent Park Focus) a Youth Media Arts Centre is looking to start up Regent Park Community TV, a one-stop venue where residents can learn of upcoming events and those outside the community can gain some new insight and a greater understanding of the oft-maligned area.
Youth at Regent Park Focus (now Regent Park Focus) have produced videos in the past, many of which have been uploaded to YouTube. The creation of a television station would bring those videos and other information out to a wider audience.
"We felt more people needed to see our material, especially people in the Regent Park community," said Regent Park Focus (now Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)) director Adonis Huggins. "It will all be youth-created content, so we're trying to engage young people to look at issues affecting our community and society."
Huggins said one of the key areas of focus will be breaking down stereotypes. Some paint Regent Park as an unsafe neighbourhood where crime and violence are rampant.
"We just want to put Regent Park on the map," said Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) youth board member William Khan. "Usually, people view Regent Park as a really violent place, but we want to show that we're creative and we're a really great community."
The channel will also offer information on everything from the ongoing Regent Park Redevelopment to community events and could even be used to announce birthdays and milestones being celebrated by local residents.
While the initial plan calls for a one-hour program on Rogers Cable 10 that would showcase Regent Park to all of Toronto, there are also ambitions to set something up just for the community.
"We're looking at RP60, which would be a closed-circuit channel only available in the Regent Park area," Huggins said. "For that, we could set it up as a text and graphics-based news channel."
Local youth will steer the programming, and Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) is training youth from the area to ensure they have the necessary skills to make it a success.
Youth Iman Zein has learned to write a script, create a storyboard, use a camera and edit film through Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) and is looking forward to sharing her own stories and experiences.
"We'll be able to reach out to a bigger audience," she said of the possibilities of Regent Park Community TV.
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) is currently seeking funding to help get the project off the ground, looking for corporate sponsors and private donors.
Tresvonne Wilson, who has worked on several media projects through Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), said the creation of a Regent Park television station could serve as a template for other communities.
"I hope to see it blow up and influence other communities," he said. "It could show other communities around Toronto that this can be done and can really help give people a voice."
The concept needs help getting off the ground. As of April 16, the initiative was roughly $10,000 short of meeting its $12,000 goal with just over 18 days left to make up the shortfall.
Now Magazine - "We've Sold Out! The Sellout Issue - The Rules Are Changing - Is That Just A Copout or is it The New Reality?"
"The revenue from this week’s cover “sellout” goes to Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), a youth organization that helps kids develop media creation skills. Seems like a natural choice, and Regent Park is just around the corner from the NOW building at Church and Shuter."
A visit to FM797 Radio Station as part of a 2014 research trip to Japan to explore community based media practices in Kyoto, Hiroshama and Tokoyo.
2010
Documentary About Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) "Shooting for Change" Continues to Air on OMNI1; Now also in Bengali.
Synopsis:
"Regent Park is a neighbourhood in downtown Toronto infamous for violent gangs, poverty and drugs.
While some of those things are present, most people living here are just regular folks trying to live their lives like anybody else. But the danger for their children to become involved in less than savoury activities is certainly there.
Enter Adonis Huggins, a man with a vision. He's running a unique media program called Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) for the local kids that not only gives them a creative outlet, but it also allows them to define themselves to a world that is only too happy to slot them into negative categories.
There's Josneara, a young Muslim girl who's making a film about the hijab – and deciding for herself whether or not she wants to wear one.
There's Nicholas, a boy who overcomes the negative effects of bullying by turning himself into a superhero in the film called BIKEMAN.
Then there's Tyrone MW. While everyone around him was falling into gangs and becoming tragic victims of violence, Tyrone was making films. Today, he works at Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) teaching younger kids those same skills.
Through the power of filmmaking, these youth are taking control of their lives and learning who they really are and where they come from."
2009
A Roster of Right-From-The-Ground-Up Projects Proving T.O.’s New Black Power Surge
by Paul Terefenko
February 3, 2009
On the outside, 600 Dundas East doesn't look very different from its boxy Regent Park neighbours. Well, it does have a peeling two-storey photo of a girl pasted to its side - a relic of Luminato - but otherwise the building is quite ordinary.
What makes this address special is what you find when you descend into the basement to the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Youth Media Arts Center. Focus, set up by the Ontario government in 1990 to promote health in this vulnerable community, has definitely evolved along its own unique path.
"What we've done is prioritize young people using media and arts," explains Adonis Huggins, Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)'s coordinator. That translates into video and music production instruction, a print magazine called Catch Da Flava and a live radio show.
I visit Focus on a Tuesday night as teens from the area prepare to go on air. No, they don't go all gossip girl, but instead give their unique perspective on Barack Obama, the shutdown of Guantánamo and Omar Khadr's ordeal.
In a nearby room someone is editing a video for Regent Park TV (RPTV), also housed in this subterranean studio. The Internet-based station communicates Regent Park's issues and experiences directly, not from the distance of an outsider looking in. The broadcasts tell personal stories, convey youth-created public service announcements on, say, smoking or sex, and ultimately give an area that can't get a fair shake from the media an accessible outlet.
Huggins says future plans include building a full-fledged television station as part of Regent Park's ongoing redevelopment that would broadcast into homes in the neighbourhood.
"RPTV is planning to produce four hours of programming daily in the first year, which should start in fall 2010," he says, clearly excited. But he suddenly turns a little sombre: "At this point our money ends on March 31, and the ministry hasn't decided if it's going to keep funding us."
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) director Adonis Huggins describes the big plans Focus has for the future:
Best Buzz - Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) with Adonis Huggins
Neighbourhood Arts Network
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) is a youth driven, not-for-profit organization located in the heart of Regent Park, Toronto. Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) is motivated by the belief that community-based media can play a vital role in building and sustaining healthy communities and seeks to increase civic engagement and effect positive change through youth-led media productions.
The program is aimed at culturally marginalized diverse youth living in and around the community. With free access to media technology, participants work collectively to explore issues and develop resources that contribute to personal well-being, the health of the community and address systemic barriers to equitable social participation.
With Adonis Huggins, Program Director
Prepared by Liz Forsberg for the Neighbourhood Arts Network.
2008
Best Community Film - Cabbagetown Short Film and Video Festival
Bike Man wins the Tim Horton's Award for Best Community Film at Cabbagetown Short Film and Video Festival. Awarded after screening at the Cabbagetown Theatre.
Andrew Chin, National Post
Published: Saturday, February 09, 2008
For most Torontonians, day-to-day life in Regent Park is a mystery. It was designed that way. Walking by, on a trip to Cabbagetown or River-dale, one only sees the brown blocky exteriors of its buildings. But plans for a Regent Park TV station, RPTV, may give Torontonians a realistic glimpse of daily life in the area.
The station is part of Regent Park Focus, a drug-awareness program that provides media training to youth in the area. Participants produce a quarterly magazine and broadcast a 30-minute radio show on Tuesday evenings on CKLN. The group offers free youth programs on video production, photography, music production and Web design.
"Our hope with RPTV is that it becomes a fully engaged community process," says Adonis Huggins, program director for Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre). "It would have a significant impact on the community."
Throughout its 17-year history, Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) has already made an impact. Its facilities are accessible to interested youth even if they aren't enrolled in a program.
Three afternoons a week, participants from the O'Connor Focus group in Victoria Park travel to Regent Park. To them, the experience has been nothing but positive.
"Instead of [getting into trouble]," says Jessica Simpson, 18, "we can learn something."
In a recent three-hour session, participants were introduced to storyboarding and script writing and then asked to storyboard, shoot and edit a public service announcement on a topic of their choice.
"It's really about the youth who come in," says Huggins. "[For the O'Connor participants] it's really trying to encourage them to produce videos about their community. For the youth that come after school, it tends to be about reporting and covering different events."
For some of the participants, the program is providing them with the training and access to contacts that will assist in their pursuit of a media job. "I used to come here all the time two years ago," says Web site technician and Regent Park resident Fahim Mohammed, 19. Originally a participant, Mohammed will slip into an instructor role when Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)'s new Web design pro-gram launches.
The program's success is being replicated in other parts of Toronto. The Rexdale Protech Media Arts Centre opened last July and Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) works in partnership with many community groups within the province.
With promising negotiations underway with Toronto Community Housing to move into a new 5,000-square-foot space that's above ground, Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)'s future looks bright. However, that doesn't mean Huggins can't see other avenues for growth.
"One of the things we haven't been able to do is attract the corporate support that a program like this needs," he admits.
2007
Regent Park TV Wins 2007 Mayor’s Community Safety Award
On December 6, Regent Park TV (RPTV) was presented with the Mayor's Community Safety Award. The awards were created by the Community Safety Secretariat to recognize the contributions of people and groups who work to make their community a safer place to live.
RPTV was launched in November 2006. It is a forum for youth, ages 12-24, to voice their experiences, share their stories and explore the issues that affect them and their community. The videos are produced by youth, with the support of youth staff, and are accessible in a range of formats including interviews, current events, debates, short dramas, documentaries, news shows, public service announcements and mockamentaries. Toronto Community Housing's Social Investment Fund is one of RPTV's key funders.
The videos can be viewed at www.regentpark.tv. The youth involved in RPTV meet regularly to discuss content and learn a range of skills in digital video and new media technologies as well as engage in production activities. RPTV is provided thanks to the support of Toronto Community Housing, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canadian Heritage, the Tippet Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council, Tides Canada Foundation, Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion, Exclusive Film and Video and the Drug Prevention Community Investment Program.
The Mayor's Community Safety Awards have become an important way to focus on safety issues at a local level, and to share the stories of organizations and individuals who are working to improve the safety of our communities. Winners are awarded with $1,000.00. This money is to be used to continue their work towards violence prevention.
2006
OMNI 1 - "Shooting For Change"
Insync Media in partnership with OMNI 1 creates documentary about Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), entitled, "Shooting for Change". In this video Adonis Huggins, Emmanuel Kendini and Tyrone MW along with many of the youth involed, talk their involvement in the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre).
February 14th, 2006 1:30 P.M. |
theglobeandmail.ca
The buildings with the blown-out windows at Dundas and Parliament Streets could easily tempt jaundiced assumptions about the neighbourhood.
If anyone is used to the cynical judgments of outsiders, it's the 7,500 residents of Regent Park, Canada's largest public-housing project and a steady supplier of news about poverty, drugs and violence.
Still, only the uninformed would have drawn dark inferences from the shattered glass yesterday. It was no act of vandalism, but Day 1 of Regent Park's billion-dollar redevelopment as a better-designed, and it is hoped, healthier community.
It's interesting how a few extra facts and a shift in perspective can turn a symbol of decay into a sign of hope, but that's pretty much what Adonis Huggins has been helping young residents to do here for more than a decade.
Mr. Huggins, 45, runs Regent Park Focus, a program that lets young people dabble in print and radio journalism, photography, filmmaking and music production. His work has just been recognized by "face the arts," a campaign by the city and Toronto Life magazine to acknowledge people who enrich Toronto's cultural life.
Mr. Huggins's program engages young people in the affairs of the community by having them portray theirs as they see it from the inside.
It's about "being able to represent yourself, rather than be represented," Mr. Huggins said yesterday, surrounded by participants' framed photographs in the program's headquarters, in the basement of a Regent Park apartment building. "It marries creativity and imagination with being able to have a voice."
If they say anything at all, young people in struggling neighbourhoods aren't always heard over the sirens, headlines and political promises that signal the latest shooting. And the community shown back to them by the mainstream media is often more caricature than realistic portrait, Mr. Huggins said.
"Marginalized, low-income young people tend not to be represented in society as much," and are beset with "the feeling that they're somehow outsiders," he said.
Documenting their lives not only gives them power over their own portrayal, but the chance to put tough questions to politicians and police, all the while picking up skills that can help launch adult careers.
The program's website, at , offers a parade of participants who went on to formal media studies, and in some cases, related jobs. While he seems loath to take the credit, Mr. Huggins, a tall man with a quiet voice, is the one they have to thank.
He arrived at Regent Park Focus in 1991 with memories of how the after-school programs of his youth helped forge his future.
Born in Toronto in 1960, Mr. Huggins grew up in Kensington Market, the son of Caribbean immigrants whose jobs meant long hours away from home. His mother was a nurse and worked shifts at a hospital, while his father worked on CN passenger trains.
"There was no running around in the streets for me," said Mr. Huggins, whose father, a former police officer, enrolled him in a youth drop-in at St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Church on Bellevue Avenue.
"That's where I got my first insights into working with youth."
When the family moved into a house on Clinton Street in Little Italy, they were the only black people on the street for years. For that reason, young Mr. Huggins would often return to Kensington, "to what I perceived to be a safer community" because it was more diverse.
He studied community work at George Brown College, then spent three years in Halifax working part time and studying at Dalhousie University before returning to Toronto in 1991.
That's when Regent Park Focus was born, out of a provincial initiative to improve health and reduce drug problems in nine communities across Ontario.
When Mr. Huggins arrived there as a youth worker, he had trouble getting young people to attend meetings and discuss issues. But when he gave them a video camera and let them record themselves, a funny thing happened.
"We discovered that youth can make the lousiest videos, but they'll watch it forever, because they can see themselves," he said, laughing at the early results.
He seized on the kids' enthusiasm and enlisted volunteers to help teach them production and editing skills.
A Regent Park community newspaper, meanwhile, had just folded, so Mr. Huggins started a group for young journalists and launched Catch da Flava, published every two months.
A radio station, photography program, music studio and Internet lab followed, all housed in a former boxing gym in the basement of 600 Dundas St. E.
The project has not been without its challenges. Two participants have been lost to violence in other parts of the city -- one shot, another stabbed. Recently, a young videographer was robbed of his camera while filming, and a computer went missing from the music studio.
Still, in the context of a continuing program involving hundreds of young people over more than a decade, these were exceptions, not defining moments.
Having their own media has not only allowed the young people of Regent Park to more fully reflect life to themselves, but "we provide a mirror for outsiders" who might jump to conclusions, Mr. Huggins said, "to look at themselves and their own perceptions."
Toronto's oldest campus-community radio station will be broadcasting as an Internet radio station by the end of the month in association with the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre.
CKLN was informed by the Ryerson Student Centre (Palin Foundation) that they have until August 27 to vacate its studios and leave the Ryerson campus, where it has broadcast for almost 30 years on 88.1 FM.
"Because we're no longer an FM station, we can't fulfill the space requirement at Ryerson," said station manager Jacky Tuinstra-Harrison.
In January, the CRTC revoked CKLN's licence, citing a lack of quality control and several regulatory violations.
"In reaching this determination, the Commission considered the serious and continuous nature of the licensee's non-compliance with numerous regulatory obligations, the station's inability to institute the measures necessary to ensure ongoing compliance, and the lack of confidence on the part of the Commission that such measures could or would be instituted within a reasonable amount of time," said the CRTC.
CKLN is home to some of the city's most diverse music and spoken word programming and has helped launch the careers of a number of prominent artists and media personalities. It provides coverage for numerous community and equity-seeking groups that are usually denied mainstream media attention.
CKLN decided to appeal the CRTC decision but the Federal Court of Appeal elected not to hear their case. So CKLN formed a re-application committee to examine the pros and cons of reapplying for the signal when a callout for applications is made.
"That call has not been made yet for that signal," said Tuinstra-Harrison. In the meantime, the re-application committee recently decided not to re-apply for the 88.1 signal. "We don't feel in the short term we can address the financing issues that would be part of an application."
Within a week, Tuinstra-Harrison said listeners will be able to listen to podcasts of their favorite shows on the newly designed CKLN internet radio station website.
And the bulk of their programming will be moving to Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre, an organization seeking to increase civic engagement and inspire positive change by giving youth the tools and support to create artistic works and media productions.
For the last 10 years, Regent Park Focus has been airing a radio program on CKLN.
"So when we lost our licence, they came with this offer," said Tuinstra-Harrison. "For the summer we've been sending people there and we've also been doing workshops for their people. So it's kind of been a good trade for us."
By September, there should be roughly 30 programmers operating out of Regent Park Focus. But CKLN is still looking for a small office space.
"Internet radio is really exciting and perfect for our audience because our DJs are specialized," said Tuinstra-Harrison. "So it's useful to cast a wider net for that."
Connecting with Regent Park Focus also gives CKLN an opportunity to reach a larger local audience.
"FM is very much about catching everyone who has a radio," she said. "Internet radio coupled with some of the things Regent Park does for their distribution gives us a wider audience."
Regent Park Focus has its own website and magazine "and that's really just a really great cross promotion platform that blankets the centre East Side (of Toronto) which is great," said Tuinstra-Harrison. "And that neighbourhood is not really represented in a very participatory way."
"Mainstream people cover Regent Park a lot, but there's not a lot that's made by Regent Park about Regent Park. So that's what they're trying to address and that matches our mission really neatly."
Regent Park Focus also has a mobile media lab, a two-person bicycle that makes radio and video projection. "And it's got solar powered speakers and you can transmit from it," she said. "It's super cool just in terms of live-to-airs and our programming might be part of that."
When CKLN programmers become Regent Park Focus volunteers, they'll be able to access other platforms such as video and television.
In terms of radio, CKLN will be broadcasting live from Regent Park Focus between 9 a.m. and midnight. At other times, pre-recorded shows will be available as podcasts. And all the live and pre-recorded shows during a 24-hour cycle will be archived as a podcast.
"So if you missed your favorite live program, you'll be able to get that archived recording," said Tuinstra-Harrison.
Fuse Magazine came to Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) to ask our volunteers and staff how our summer program video workshop runs. Its strengths and its challenges. Around this time we were working on a video series called "Bike Man". A mini-series of which a hero by the name of Bike Man (played by Nicklus Rowe) who teaches youth the importance of Bike safety. This Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) created hero can be seen on the cover of Fuse Magazine.
2004
Share Newspaper - G-G impressed with Regent Park Youth
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson toured Regent Park in downtown Toronto recently, where she met with students and observed the positive changes they are making in the community.
During her visit she officially opened the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), a new photography gallery displaying the works of area youths.
Established in 1991, the program was created as part of a provincial government strategy promoting health to people living in vulnerable communities in Ontario. The gallery is dedicated to exhibiting the photographic works of young people and emerging Canadian photographers in the Regent Park neighbourhood.
“Coming here and meeting all of you from different cultural backgrounds, means I get a view of this community from the inside out, and I am very impressed with what I saw, including the plan for future development,” said the Governor General.
Adonis Huggins, program co-coordinator of the Regent Park program, said he was thankful that Clarkson was visiting and seeing the positive impact the students are having on their community. As a part of her visit the Governor General was interviewed on Catch Da Flava, a radio program operated by students from the area.
While in Toronto, the Governor General swore in a number of new Canadians at a citizenship ceremony. Article sourced from Share Newspaper - "GG impressed with Regent Park Youth"
2003
Splice This - Annual Film Festivals
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)
Sunday June 22, 2003
A co-presentation with EYE video program
Last summer EYE video conducted a super 8 workshop for youth in Regent Park. The kids were encouraged to make urban-inspired films so they went ahead and made a bunch of smart, funny and brutally honest movies.
- All filmmakers are wise beyond their years and will be in attendance
2000
City of Toronto Youth Violence Prevention
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Community Coalition Against Substance Abuse
Through the use of media technology, Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) provides a supportive environment where youth share decision-making, feel a sense of belonging, meet professionals in the field and engage with other youth in positive activities. They also learn about issues of relevance and express their creative talents and points of view. The program includes the "Catch Da Flava" newspaper and Web site, the "Catch Da Flava" radio show (broadcast live from Regent Park to CKLN 88.1), and E.Y.E. video, production studio and photography.
Members of E.Y.E. video are currently engaged in anti-violence workshops involving the screening of Last Witness, a 10-minute video that examines the socio-economic factors that perpetuate violence in the Black community. Last Witness was produced by E.Y.E. this past summer, and vividly describes the murder of two young people. The video is accompanied by a workshop that explores the issues identified in the film. e.y.e. has also produced a video on globalization called Rock Against FTA, a video on billboard advertising entitled A Brand New World Order, and a video called Let's Talk about It: Khat and other Drugs.
University of Toronto - CATCH DA FLAVA!
Matt Capper
For most of us, Regent Park is not an area you want to visit. When traveling downtown, most of us will probably stay clear of it altogether. The general conception of this area is this: Low income housing, crime-infested and dangerous. I decided to risk my life and wonder beyond the ever-so-classy district of Toronto’s Yonge-and-Dundas-area. It failed to surprise me that I was not shot at or mugged. The fact of the matter is that Regent Park only seemed as dangerous as the walk to the Fossil every Tuesday night. After all, it is Scarborough that had the highest murder rate in 2002.
My objective was not to see if Regent Park was really as bad as it is said to be. Instead, I was invited to watch a group of young Regent Park residents, who refuse to conform to the media stereotype that has been placed on them, put on a live radio show, which discusses the issues of Regent Park and the surrounding area. The organization is called Catch Da Flava and it is the brainchild of a very enthusiastic Adonis Huggins.
...
Article sourced from The Underground Online - "Catch da Flava!"
The Toronto Star - A Message to Youth: It Pays to be Creative
Art Reach Toronto will spend $1.2M on youth projects Hard-to-reach kids in troubled areas first priority
SUSAN WALKER | ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER
For the past 15 or 20 years, artists, arts organizations and the agencies that fund them have been trying to prove — in the face of government cutbacks — the value of supporting the arts.
Mostly the focus has been on consumer spending and the job growth the arts fuel. Mostly, governments and politicians didn't listen.
All that time, the most persuasive evidence for supporting artists could have been found close to home, in the neighbourhoods whose residents can't afford to attend the opera, the symphony, the ballet or the theatre.
Studies have found that in these underprivileged communities, young people thrive when given a chance to express themselves. Where crime is a problem, where the oft-heard plea to "get kids off the streets" has gone unanswered, a video project, a music recording studio, or free instruction in painting, mask-making or putting on a play is one of the most effective ways to keep teens out of trouble, in school or on their way to jobs.
Using the arts as a tool for social change is not a new concept, but arts-funding bodies in Toronto are just now embracing it wholeheartedly. ArtReach Toronto is the latest manifestation of a trend to put the arts back into the lives of children and young adults after arts education and job programs were killed by Conservative governments in the 1990s.
Projects funded by health and social services ministries, in GTA communities where violence, the drug trade and gang warfare have taken root, provided the inspiration for the Art-Reach fund. The pilot project will spend $1.2 million over three years on arts projects done by and for young people aged 12 to 25. Organizers expect to issue some grants within three months. Not-for-profit organizations, individual artists and artist groups working with youth are eligible to apply.
Those projects that come from the most underserved neighbourhoods will get priority.
At a launch this week, Toronto rapper and producer Kardinal Offishall described what public funding once meant to him. The Jobs for Youth program, a provincial initiative in the late 1980s under Bob Rae's government, paid his wages when he worked in an antique store. The now-defunct Toronto program Fresh Arts — supporting spoken word, music and visual arts projects — helped Offishall get started in the music business.
"We made a rap video and recorded it at Mr. Greenjeans in the Eaton Centre," he said, his speech actually being read by his associate Solitair in the youth-run Whippersnapper Gallery. Offishall had a last-minute conflict: a Los Angeles date to record a video with Eminem.
Art empowers, Offishall maintained, rhyming off the names of successful local artists — k-os, Little X, Jully Black, Saukrates and Divine Brown — who got their start in arts projects.
Shahina Sayani, a 32-year-old former executive director of For Youth Initiative, is the program manager of ArtReach Toronto. She's also a founding member of Grassroots Youth Collaborative, consultants to the program.
ArtReach is different from other granting programs, says Sayani, because "it actually supports youth as they are going through the granting process." The application forms have been simplified, and "listening to the voices of young people" is a priority, she says.
On hand to talk about what she meant was Adonis Huggins, director of Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre). Funded since 1991 by the Ministry of Health and sponsored by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the $200,000-a-year operation is run out of a basement in Regent Park, Canada's oldest public-housing community.
"I did quit crystal meth, because I wanted to make this video." Participant in Edmonton arts project
The centre is home to Catch da Flava newspaper, Catch da Flava Radio, E.Y.E. video youth productions and a photography studio. Huggins manages programs serving people aged 12 to 23. "All of them are over-subscribed," he says. Young residents, many defined as "at-risk," have learned how to communicate what their lives are really like.
With such models in mind, the eight bodies that contribute to ArtReach Toronto have had to learn to co-operate. Canadian Heritage, the three arts councils, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation and United Way of Greater Toronto are the main partners.
Talks began on the development of ArtReach two years ago at the Intergovernmental Roundtable of Arts Funders and Foundations. Instead of just trading information the group decided to design a joint project involving youth.
"We had two objectives," says one of the group, Denis Lefebvre of the Laidlaw Foundation. "Youth engagement through the arts and learning to collaborate as funders."
Some of the agencies were already focusing on helping young people in trouble through the arts. Laidlaw, for instance, had recently reformed its arts mandate to "enhancing the well-being of young people, through engagement, diversity, social inclusion and civic engagement."
Art is a tool for social change "but," says Lefebvre, "there's also the intrinsic value that arts bring. Young people talk about beauty, fear, horror — what artists generally do, trying to reflect society through an artistic medium."
It's no accident that youth-run arts projects create innovative and intriguing art. And ArtReach is flexible in its definition of art: it can be jazz or classical music, puppetry, documentaries, circus arts or multimedia.
"The arts are very powerful," says Sayani. "At FYI, I saw how programs engaged the most hard-to-reach kids. Sometimes it's only an arts program that will bring those young persons through the door, provide a creative means of expressing themselves (and) an outlet for anger or feelings about issues in their community that they don't know how to deal with.
"We had a group of young males that had no access to services. We put in a recording studio and suddenly they had an opportunity to speak about how they felt and do something really positive."
There is a lot of research to back up the social improvement outcomes expected from ArtReach, says Patrick Tobin, director of strategic policy and communications for the Department of Canadian Heritage in Toronto.
His department reviewed research by Robin Wright, of the McGill University School of Social Work. One of her studies examined the iHuman Youth Society in Edmonton, where young offenders are referred for rehabilitation. The teens willingly signed up for arts instruction. After 10 weeks they all reported an improvement in life and outlook. Said one participant: "I did quit crystal meth, because I wanted to make this video."
"The results were phenomenal," says Tobin, "in behavioural improvement, socialization, attachment to school and to jobs."
ArtReach represents a tough learning curve for arts agencies that have developed into bureaucratic fiefdoms.
"We all think we have our niche," says Lefebvre, "but we know that there is overlap. We don't collaborate and we should."
That may be changing. Among the interested parties circling the project, says Tobin, is the Raptors Foundation, charitable arm of the Maple Leafs and Raptors. Organizers are hopeful the Raptors' interest is a sign that ArtReach is just beginning to spread its arms.
Tamil Canadian Services - Filming Regent Park's Heart - Festival Offers New Perspective
"This is a lot different from any other film festival. We put a lot of heart into it. Our stuff is full of feelings and emotions," said Vinh Duong, 21, who has lived in Regent Park since his family moved to Canada from Vietnam 15 years ago.
"We want to tell our stories and express the hardships that we go through here. People (outside) think that we are a violent, drug-filled community, but we are not. We are like (people in) Rosedale, we have a strong community here."
Adonis Huggins, a youth worker at Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), said the community centre's media program started in 1995 out of a local desire to find a voice in the media. From there, participants started their own quarterly paper, weekly radio show, photography and video production workshops.
Article sourced from Tamil Eelam
The Eyeopener Online - Campus Becomes Forum for Hope
"Media is a powerful tool and it does control the way we think," says Vinh Duong of Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre). He recognizes that mainstream society often sees these youth in a negative light and that a change needs to occur.
"The news is filled with propaganda and the alternative media need to grow somehow so it can allow people to see both perspectives [the good and the bad]."
These groups are challenging the status quo in hopes of proving that there are young people in "at-risk" areas who care about their communities and futures.
Their enthusiasm for the improvement of their neighborhoods was evident in all of the days' discussions.This was especially true when asked if they would stay with the programs after the novelty wore off.Several of the students responded by saying...
Article sourced from the Eyeopener
The Globe and Mail - As Regent Park falls, a Hopeful Vision Endures
It's interesting how a few extra facts and a shift in perspective can turn a symbol of decay into a sign of hope, but that's pretty much what Adonis Huggins has been helping young residents to do here for more than a decade.
Mr. Huggins, runs Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), a program that lets young people dabble in print and radio journalism, photography, filmmaking and music production. His work has just been recognized by "face the arts," a campaign by the city and Toronto Life magazine to acknowledge people who enrich Toronto's cultural life.
Article sourced from The Globe and Mail
Rabble News - Guns and Gangs: Looking for Solutions
Politicians need to open their ears and do some thinking about Black youth in Toronto rather than reacting to a year of intense gun violence with racist notions about crime, say leaders in Toronto's Black community.
In late January, a panel discussion called Racialization of Crime: Anti-racist Responses to the Guns and “Gangs” Debate, was held at the Toronto Reference Library surprising organizers with a huge turnout.
Speaking to the overcrowded audience, M. Nourbese Philip, Rinaldo Walcott, Dalton Higgins and Kike Roach, a civil rights lawyer, weighed in on Canada's response to the much-publicized gun violence in Toronto. Article sourced from Rabble.ca - rabble news Guns and gangs
The Toronto Star - Getting an Education on Race and Crime
She was unused to public speaking and the auditorium was packed. She said she was a teacher at a west-end high school where a student there had been arrested after a recent and notorious shooting. We craned our necks to look at her.
We had come, some 200 of us, to listen to a panel discussion and to talk about race and guns and crime. The panel had just wrapped up and now was the time for questions. The woman's voice grew stronger.
"I came here because our schools are turning kids into criminals. Students aren't respected. They are held back. We turn them into animals. We suspend them. We kick them out. We're not teaching kids to read and write."
She confirmed a widely held suspicion in that room: Too many kids leave school — or are thrown...
Article sourced from The Toronto Star - Getting an education on race and crime
The Toronto Star - Busting Myths Behind Race and Crime
One evening, said the librarian, there were young people in the teen room of her branch, doing what teens do. An older patron grew more and more upset until she couldn't contain herself — she came to the desk, got all hissy, and complained about "those youth."
I don't think it was the phrase, "those youth." I think it was the way the woman is reported to have said it.
But if you can guess the colour of the teens, and the colour of the patron, then you have an intuitive understanding of the problem of race in this town.
The meeting, held recently at the downtown branch of the public library, was organized by a youth-media group called Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre). It was meant to be a public discussion of the racialization of crime in Toronto; it featured a panel, a couple of short films, and questions afterwards.
On the panel: NourbeSe Philip, a writer; Rinaldo Walcott, a teacher; Dalton Higgins, a music journalist; and Kiké Roach, a civil rights lawyer.
In the crowd: the usual suspects from the woolly left, plus various teachers, activists...
Article sourced From The Toronto Star - Busting myths behind race and crime
City TV Pulse24 - Community Groups View For Stop The Violence Money
Meanwhile, the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), where area youths in the city’s largest housing projects come together to learn photography, film, television and music production are also hoping to get some of the Stop The Violence money, as they’ve got a lot of equipment needed to make their dream a reality. The group is hoping to produce a documentary in the coming year, about the violence that has plagued...
Article sourced from CP24
The Toronto Star - These Are People I Know
Over in Regent Park, Angela Musceo is doing her part to build bridges. She sits on a police youth advisory committee that meets once a month.
Musceo, 20, is the outreach co-ordinator at Focus, a drop-in centre where 13- to 20-year-olds can get involved in filmmaking, photography and music. They've got their own show on campus radio station CKLN on Tuesday nights. Police Chief Bill Blair was a recent guest.
Musceo sympathizes with the challenges Blair and his officers face but insists the police need to get more involved in communities affected by violence.
"People feel like they only show up when something happens. There's no relationship. If a cop was in an area all the time, you'd feel more inclined to talk to them if you knew their name and who they were. Otherwise, people aren't going to trust or confide in them. There's always going to be that hostility if they're not part of the community. Things are not going to improve until... (click below for the full story)
Article sourced from The Toronto Star - "These are people I know"
Now Magazine - Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Keeps Budding Media Mavens on Track
In its inaugural year, Mpenzi makes black history personal with a slate of 10 films from North America, Africa and Europe about individual memories. The BBC film Reunion documents the small contingent of upper-class Caribbean women recruited by the British army to work as nurses and secretaries during the second.... (click below for the full story)
Article sourced from Now Magazine Online - "Mpenzi"
CrossCurrents - Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Keeps Budding Media Mavens on Track
It’s a common fault adults make – judging teens by the clothes they wear. And certainly Justin Walters, 17, looks every inch the hip hop dee-jay, his slight frame lost somewhere inside a slouchy white tracksuit.
It’s just two minutes until airtime at Catch da Flava Radio, located in an apartment building in Toronto’s Regent Park, Canada’s largest and oldest community housing project. Yet Walters is as smooth as any media veteran, sliding one palm along the table and cradling the mike in the other...
Article sourced from Cross Currents - Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) keeps budding media mavens on track
The Dish - THE REEL DEAL
By Mey Mey Fung 18 / West Toronto Collegiate
MAKING THE MOST OF AN OPPORTUNITY
During the summer of 2004 I became a part of the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Media Arts Program, where I somehow found myself in the position of Media Arts Production Assistant. Suddenly, windows of opportunity opened for me!
... (click below for the full story)
Article sourced from The Dish - "The Reel Deal"
Suface and Symbol - Bringing Flava to The Community
By Andrea Raymond
Upon entering Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), I was greeted by an exhibition of photos documnting the people of the community. Led into the building by Adonis Huggins, Program Director of Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), I was surprised to find such a hub of artistic and media production in the basement of one of the many buildings of Regent Park, Canada’s largest and oldest public housing community.
...
Article sourced from Surface and Symbol - "Bringing flava to the community"
The Toronto Star - Filming Regent Park's Heart
"This is a lot different from any other film festival. We put a lot of heart into it. Our stuff is full of feelings and emotions," said Vinh Duong, 21, who has lived in Regent Park since his family moved to Canada from Vietnam 15 years ago.
"We want to tell our stories and express the hardships that we go through here. People (outside) think that we are a violent, drug-filled community, but we are not. We are like (people in) Rosedale, we have a strong community here."
Adonis Huggins, a youth worker at Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre), said the community centre's media program started in 1995 out of a local desire to find a voice in the media. From there, participants started their own quarterly paper, weekly radio show, photography and video production workshops.
Huggins was hesitant when Siddan brought the idea to the agency because he wasn't sure if the community would support it.
"But we know the community would like to see themselves reflected through the media because all the (other) media only mirror what their reality is not (about)."
Thaseepan Mariyanayagam, 14, will have his 10-minute documentary Moving Out (about youth leaving Regent Park) screened at the film festival. "The whole thing about the festival is exciting," said the teen, who came to Canada from Sri Lanka seven years ago. "I'm so proud of it." ...
Article sourced from The Toronto Star - "Filming Regent Park's heart"
Metro News - Creativity Shines in Arts Course
Participants of the Regent Park arts program learn practical aspects of radio production.
A unique program that helps young Regent Park residents get a leg up is hitting a milestone this summer.
The Regent Park multimedia arts program begins its 10th year on Aug. 2.
Offered to students up to 24 years of age, the program helps prepare people pursuing post-secondary education or careers...
Article sourced from Metro News - "Media Arts Education"
The Toronto Star - Regent Park hosts Clarkson
"It's very special, very important," said Justin Goldenthal, an on-air volunteer at Catch Da Flava. Clarkson and Ralston Saul seemed to enjoy the sights and sounds of the community east of the downtown, stopping to look at scores of tulips coming up in a garden on Dundas St. E.
... (click below for the full story)
Article sourced from The Toronto Star - "Regent Park hosts Clarkson"
Now Magazine - Best Influence on Budding Filmmakers
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)
416-863-1074 Who needs drugs when you can make movies? Home to a newspaper, radio station, photography studio and video production workshop, Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) helps teens tell their own stories. Check out the results at Krank It Up! , their ninth annual film, video, photo and multimedia exhibition, Sunday (November 2) at Innis Town Hall.
Article sourced from Now Magazine
ICED IN BLACK
Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre): Super 8 Film Festival Entries
35 minutes 2000, English
Various young filmmakers create their own unique short films through the Regent Park Media Project for the Super 8 Film Festival. Hip hop inspired videos that give you the taste of the neighbourhood, conquering fears, the end of the world, superheroes, mysteries, and horrors are some of the themes that these teens have caught...
Article sourced from Iced In Black Films
Canadian Dimension - Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre)
The Regent Park Family Drop-In Centre is located just east of downtown in the heart of one of Toronto's low-income communities. Here, in a windowless basement lit by flourescent bulbs and decorated with black-and-white photos and secondhand furniture, Adonis Huggins works to co-ordinate the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Media Arts Program. The program has been running for more than ten years, in which time it has grown from a substance-abuse prevention program incorporating video into a multi-media resource that gives youth the chance to create Super-8 films, video documentaries, broadcast radio, audio art, a website and a community newspaper. Under the mandate of the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Community Coalition against Substance Abuse, the program is supported by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Ontario Ministry of Health.
"Basically, the original idea was to do grassroots community prevention work," Huggins explains. "We were trying to figure out how to engage youth. We decided, instead of us coming to them with information, to give them the tools they need to find that information for themselves. So, in 1993, after stumbling for a few years, we started these... (click below for the whole article)
Article sourced from Canadian Dimension Jamming Out on Pop Culture
Centre For Addiction & Mental Health
Catch da Flava is a newspaper produced by young people involved in the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Media Arts Program -- a substance abuse prevention program that seeks to use media technology as a tool for change-stimulating discussion, information sharing, awareness and action on substance abuse and other issues of concern relevant to youth. The program operates under the mandate of the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Community Coalition Against Substance Abuse, a program of the Centre. Youth are involved in all aspects of production including writing, editing, design layout, advertising and distribution.
Community Arts Biannale - Outreach 2000
For the past year, youth from five different communitiy organizations in Toronto have been working with photography instructors at Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography to learn creative photography skills. The resulting projects – ranging from soundscape photographs to slide projections – will be displayed at Gallery 44 as part of CAB 2000.
The Students Commission
The Regent Park Community Project
Who Am I?
I'm Dianah or D! I work at The Students Commission in the Toronto Office. As most of you know I am involved with the Sharing Resources 2000 project.
What Am I Doing?
This page is my community project. Although I work with The Students Commission supporting delegates with their community projects, I wanted to get involved with a youth group in my own community. I grew up in a low-income community and missed out on a lot of things because we were poor. We were recent immigrants to Canada from Jamaica. Among other things, we were learning a new culture; we were dealing with racism, and we did not have a lot of money. Although both my parents worked full time they were in low paying jobs. I am interested in helping other poor youth and youth of colour to get involved with The Students Commission.
The Project
I am volunteering weekly with a local youth group: the Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) Community Coalition. Regent Park is one of oldest low-income housing projects in North America. A lot of assumptions are made about low- income neighbourhoods: including... (click below for the whole article)
Article sourced from TG Magazine
1997
CBC - Special Coverage of FOCUS
Television Coverage of Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) by CBC, aired in 1997.
With a front row seat to the revitalization of the east Toronto neighbourhood, the Grade 8 student has seen countless changes over the years. She's literally watched the condo towers rise around her.
November 6, 2017 |
Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration
Regent Park's ongoing revitalization has seen the community welcome a new grocery store, a bank and plenty of other firsts. 
Fuse Magazine came to Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) to ask our volunteers and staff how our summer program video workshop runs. Its strengths and its challenges. Around this time we were working on a video series called "Bike Man". A mini-series of which a hero by the name of Bike Man (played by Nicklus Rowe) who teaches youth the importance of Bike safety. This Regent Park Focus (now FOCUS Media Arts Centre) created hero can be seen on the cover of Fuse Magazine.
