Throughout our first full session our group had a goal of coming up with a topic of study and learning about one another. This was difficult as one group member had to leave early and another arrived late. As a result we struggled to create a topic that we knew everyone would be interested in, since everyone was not around to give their input. We also struggled to come to a compromise since everyone had a different topic that they wanted to focus on. We took a long time, but feel that we found a topic that incorporates everyone’s interests. The only thing we knew for certain is that we wanted to make a podcast. This inspired our group name “Regent Park Radio Shack” in reference to a popular retail company related to recording needs.
When discussing what topic to study, we learned quite a lot in this first session, with the help of our Regent Park resident participants. Murshida spoke of her experience trying to give youth in the neighborhood more access to public pools and opportunities to learn swimming. This led us to touch on the rising rates of drowning incidents among children in Toronto and agree that swimming is a life skill all children should have. Miguel pointed out something different with regards to Regent Park: it is incredibly difficult to remain in Regent Park as an adolescent or young adult once you are no longer a dependant of the home you grew up in. This conversation was geared more towards TCHC and the lack of support they provide in order to the young people of Regent Park, in Regent Park.
After consideration, our neighborhood issue of interest is the lives of youth in Regent Park. Specifically our question is “Where/how does Regent Park fit in the future of youths within the neighborhood?” When studying this question we hope to assess what is pulling kids to stay in Regent Park, what is pushing them to leave, and how the retention of youth in Regent Park can be fostered. We plan to study this through looking at changes that have occurred in the neighborhood and how that will affect the future of current youths in the neighborhood. With the help of residents we will be able to conduct resident interviews to gather further information then what we can find in solely academic research.
As for getting acquainted with our groups we went around and shared something we felt was interesting about ourselves. Starting with Murshida, we learned that she lives her life upon a belief that age has nothing to do with learning and she wants to be a role model of that. This philosophy is what led Murshida to participate in our class this semester. When speaking with Fatiha we learned that her dream is to open a shelter for abused Muslim, who are often feel they have nowhere to turn to in situations of abuse. Fatiha also shared that she is a morning person. Miguel told us that he has applied four times to be a community animator. Amongst University of Toronto students we have Daniel and Kaylee. Daniel is trying to get into podcasting, fueling his interest in making a podcast for this project. He also loves anime. Kaylee wants to be a primary school teacher in the future and loves to read and swim. Unfortunately since members arrived and left at different times we were not able to receive an interesting fact about Rabia this week.