Peace and Unity in The Community

By -

People’s Elite holds a Peace and Unity event in Regent Park

On August 20, 2021, a grassroot organization named ‘People’s Elite’ held a Peace and Unity in the Community event on the Regent Park’s Athletic Field. The four-day community event used basketball to engage youth in life skills, business and entrepreneurship and mental health. The activities included yoga, speakers and journaling. Co-founders, Foad Karimian and Duane Spencer, decided to hold this event so they could cater to the youth of Regent Park who have had a difficult year and a half due to the Coronavirus and spread unity since there has been some discordance among youth in the community. The organizers decided to use basketball as their teaching tool due to its inexpensive nature and its ability to integrate other learning lessons such as life and entrepreneurship skills. According to Karimian, youth in Regent Park don’t have opportunities to engage with professionals, “these youth have more opportunities to mingle than (professional) network.” Networking, according to Karimian, could lead to potential employment issues, as many Regent Park youth may not know how to code switch to speak in a professional manner. Karimian also mentioned that “network equals net worth,” without the skills to build a professional network it is extremely difficult to gain a strong net worth. Noah Berhane, a participant in the program spoke about the importance of the event on youth in the community. This event made him feel as if there are genuine adults in the community that look out for youth. In addition, he mentioned that the event promotes peace and happiness between youth. In closing, Karimian passionately reminded us that “there is no community without unity.”

 

By Jamelia Parnell

(Jamelia is a journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regent Park Portrayed in Film and Television

By -
Image
Toronto has a rich history of being a go-to shooting location for many television and film production companies. Some notable films shot here over the years include Good Will Hunting (1997), Billy Madison (1998), American Psycho (2000), and X-Men (2000). Regent Park has also had its share of showcases in film. This article aims to review the general content of movie dramas and televisions shows shot in Regent and explore their relationship to the community. Clement Virgo is a director, producer, and writer from Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was born in 1966 and moved to the Regent Park area in Toronto in 1977. During this time Regent Park was generally populated by low-income families and as a hot spot for drugs. Virgo is most recently known for his roles in Greenleaf (2016-2018), The Book of Negroes (2015), and The Wire (2002) as Director and/or Producer. His first feature-length film, however, was Rude (1995), which was filmed almost entirely in the old Regent Park. “The film told
Read more

Meet Your Neighbourhood Police Officers – PC Mircea Biga and PC Farzad Ghotbi

By -
Image
Community-based policing is a proactive law enforcement strategy that focuses on building ties and working closely with a community’s members to create partnerships and plans for preventing and reducing crime. While community policing will look differently depending on the community it serves, a central feature is that the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis. Currently there are 17 community-based police programs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but what most people don’t know is that Toronto’s community policing started in Regent Park in May of 2017. We know this because the original officers involved in setting up the Regent Park community policing program continue to work here today. The officers are PC Mircea Biga, PC Farzad Ghotbi, and PC Edward Parks; the newest officer assigned to the Regent Park community is PC Nigel Thomas (who is replacing PC Melissa Huntley while she is on maternity leave). Symptomatic of the increasing diversity of
Read more

WHY RENAME DUNDAS STREET IN TORONTO – what’s in a name?

By -
Image
July 14th, 2021: After a lengthy debate on Wednesday, council voted 17 to 7 in favour of a motion put forward by Mayor John Tory and city staff to change the name of Dundas Street. Dundas Street cuts across an immense swath of neighbourhoods including the community of Regent Park, as it circumnavigates the eastern and western boundaries of Toronto. Beginning in the east end at Kingston Rd. and working its way westward, Dundas Street travels through The Beach, Leslieville, Riverside, Regent Park, Cabbagetown South, ChinaTown, Alexandra Park, Trinity Bellwoods, Little Portugal, Brockton Village, the Junction Triangle, Lambton, Chestnut Hills, Islington, Summerville, Appelwood Heights, Mississauga Valley, and to Erindale at its western edge where it becomes Hwy 5. Each of these neighbourhoods has a distinct cultural vibe and demographic make-up, urban, residential, commercial, suburban and in some case semi-industrial, each locale a mix of rich identities and histories that begs out to
Read more