Catch da Flava On-Line

I had moved into Regent Park only a few days before I saw the pink, fuchsia, strawberry, indigo, yellow, green, neck streamers and sparkling robes worn by children, parents, aunts, uncles, and elders as they marched passed my kitchen door. Soon, the nearby Athletic Grounds was blazing with colour. Although it was the first time I heard them, the intonations on the microphone were recognizable, even to me, as prayers. It was Eid, the concluding celebration after Ramadan. It was a beautiful sight. I am a White Jewish senior and I hunted for a stairless condo for years before I chose to live in Regent Park and then only because a relative did business with the new seniors’ building there. “Regent Park?” a friend exclaimed. “You are going to have ethnic problems.”  “Not I.  I come from a long line of fiery leftie activists.” I replied. Stage four and five of revitalizing this post-war subsidized development into a multi-income community was just beginning and I jumped in w

On May 10, 2023, the Regent Park Social Development Plan network will be holding a community meeting reporting on the work and achievements over the past year. For those of you who are unaware, the Regent Park Social Development Plan (SDP) is a community wide initiative aimed at bringing all residents and groups together to stimulate positive social change around four priority areas, each represented by a working group (community safety, community building, employment and economic development and communication). These working groups meet monthly. In addition to the working groups, there are also four standing committees (Evaluation and Benchmark, the Funding Committee, the Community Benefits Oversight Working Group and the Planning Committee). Some of these committees meet monthly, some bi-weekly and some, like the Planning Committee, meet every single week! As if all these meetings were not enough, almost all the workgroups and committees have task groups or sub-committees that meet i