A Birthday, A Busy Week, and Big Progress
This week was Jamie’s birthday - happy birthday, Jamie! We appreciate and want to celebrate everything you do in and outside our class!
This week, we moved away from the planning phase of our project, and towards executing our tasks. It was a particularly difficult week for our group, as we were bombarded with our workload, but we still managed to make significant strides in our deliverables. We met three times this week, setting aside a day for each of our three deliverables to have focused, in-depth discussions on the project's direction, execution, and final results.
Interview Prep and Unexpected Setbacks
On Tuesday, we squeezed in two calls to prepare for our interview with our VIP, Humaira. With everyone juggling heavy workloads and busy schedules, group morale was low. Still, we managed to find a time that worked for everyone, ensuring full participation and keeping those who couldn’t attend informed. We spent the meeting strategizing for our follow-up interview with Humaira, and ironing out the details of our comic and podcast. After a long day at work, Farhana swung by the cafe in an attempt to set up the interview. She noticed the Carousel Cafe was closed due to a private event with private caterers. This got the group thinking: how does sharing the Cafe’s space work, and what impact does this have on Carousel’s operations? More importantly, how did our protagonist Humaira feel about it? Despite the scheduling challenges and unexpected setbacks, we were able to draft our podcast script.
Piecing Together the Comic
On Wednesday, Eric was racing against time to submit an assignment for another course , so we focused primarily on our comic and updated him afterwards. Farhana went to the Cafe in a second attempt to catch Humaira and confirmed the interview for Thursday after class. Jamie and Kaitlyn met at a cafe to continue working out missing pieces for specific panels, such as outstanding reference photos of the neighbourhood for Eric to photograph.
Selfie of Kaitlyn and Jamie at the coffee shop, during the group call.
We hopped on a call and updated each other on our progress.
At the end of our “yap sesh”, Kaitlyn and Jamie collectively produced the beginning of our comic book, with Jamie taking the lead in visioning and creating drafts of scenes of the comic and Kaitlyn refining detailed scenes and characters from Jamie’s work. It was all starting to come together!
A screenshot of some drawings for the comic from Kaitlyn’s. With illustrations depicting a child wearing a hijab walking into the Carousel Cafe and speaking to Humaira before transitioning to flashbacks
The working storyboard draft from Jamie, outlining the general direction and certain panel details for the overall comic book.
A Conversation with Humaira
During class, we each worked on our designated tasks. Eric set out to take more reference photos while the sun was out, Kaitlyn started the introduction of the long-piece journalism, and worked on interview questions with Farhana, and Jamie finalized the storyboard.
Due to how busy the space is for most of the day, some scene capture of the cafe entrance was finally enabled by an early morning excursion which will be used for some of the introductory scenes of the book. [photo by Eric]
Many references to the community organizations located on the second floor of Daniels Spectrum were made in the first interview, and the second interview ultimately took place here too, prompting capture of the space on Thursday [photo by Eric]
After Farhana broke her fast with the iftar meal, she went with Kaitlyn to interview Humaira on the second floor of the Daniels Spectrum, in front of the office where the Youth Enrichment Academy was formerly located. Against the backdrop of African drumming in a nearby music class, Humaira shared updates on the Carousel Café, her experience with displacement in Regent Park, and how economic injustices have affected both her and the youth she supported at the Youth Enrichment Academy. While Farhana took the lead in asking questions, Kaitlyn followed up with clarifying questions, acting as the out-group perspective.
It was an insightful conversation, take a listen here:
Here are some of our key findings:
Humaira’s family was relocated a total of three times (counting their new home): once in the same building where Daniels Spectrum approximately now stands, then in the north side of Regent Park, before permanently being relocated to her new home near Shuter Street.
The old relocation policy required residents to have been moved twice within TCHC buildings in order to qualify for a new build
Some neighbors who were relocated outside Regent Park lost eligibility for new housing.
Humaira and her siblings faced “double displacement”. Not only did her family have to relocate homes multiple times, she and her siblings also had to relocate schools. Nelson Mandela was undergoing renovations and all students were divided between Duke of York and Lord Dufferin. As a result, she and her siblings attended different schools, which were further from her home and created obstacles.
Constantly moving, she recalls always being in “go mode”. There wasn’t time to reflect on the ever-changing surroundings. Despite the displacement of her family and her neighbours, common spaces like parks and playgrounds were where she would see old neighbours and friends. However, she still thinks about neighbours with whom she lost touch and who left the neighbourhood entirely
Economic injustices manifest differently over time. Earlier generations relied on communal support to bridge gaps “out of nothing”. Today, while companies like The Daniels Corporation offer extensive support, the viability of programs and initiatives remain at jeopardy, and obstacles to community cohesion remain an issue for residents. Youth still face issues of economic injustice through unsustainable and irregular corporate and public funding, risking the loss of vital programs.
The team members of Where did my neighbours go? are Eric, Farhana, Jamie, and Kaitlyn