Creating More Space for Youth

By: Lori Harito

Last Thursday I went to the Toronto Free Gallery on Queen Street East, for the event that was scheduled to happen there. The idea behind it was "Youth Generated Autonomous Spaces ." And the people who were presenting were talking about issues concerning youth, and youth groups and initiatives around Toronto.

To be honest, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. It was a small room, probably a little bigger than your bedroom at home. The chairs were lined in a row. They had cute punch and plastic cups, and Ruffles chips which the coordinator tried to get people to eat as much of as possible, apologizing profusely that that's all they had.

Toronto Free Gallery is easy to miss if you're not looking for it. And even if you are, you still miss at...aka..me. It's small, but it works. The staff there are friendly, and welcoming and greeted me immediately. I told them who I was and they were delighted to see me (although seemed stunned that a Ryerson journalism student was there). They asked me how I found out about this, in a way that made it seem they weren't expecting many outsiders to show. But by the end of the night, the room was packed.

The three guests that were presenting were Adonis Huggins from Regent Park Focus Media, who brought along three of the boys who worked on Catch Da Flava magazine and at the Regent Park Focus Media. They were really laid back, and open to listening to everyone. I think they had the best presentation of all, showing videos they had put together of what goes on in Regent Park Focus, and then some of the videos that Regent Park TV had done on issues in Regent Park. You could tell the boys were passionate and liked what they did, and were concerned with the issues in Regent Park.

I introduced myself to Adonis who is an extremely cool guy. He's laid back and welcoming, and he's getting used to all these Ryerson students bombarding him all the time.

The other presenter was Sue Ruddick from the University of Toronto, who has spent 20 years doing research on youth. She's done some major research in Los Angeles. Her main point was that youth are discriminated against, and pretty much that youth are alienated and treated as ventriloquist to their parent's and societies demands in general.

The third group was the Support Our Youth (SOY) group, which is a gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered group open for youths as a safe place to talk about their differences, challenges and being accepted in the community. I wasn't too pleased with them, for the simple fact that their group got so scared by my camera and that I was filming (mostly focused on Adonis and his group...I didn't even care about SOY)...that they asked the coordinator who I was and what I was doing, then asked her to tell me to shut it off. So I couldn't photograph or film the event, even though I had personally asked Adonis if it was alright with him to film it, and the coordinator had told me before that it was fine. So, yes, sorry I'm a little bitter about that fact.

Overall...it wasn't what I expected and I thought they could have done a lot more with this. They had three groups with very interesting stories, a talented woman who had done some major research. They could have run with this....instead it just sort of lacked lustre. Apart from RPTV who had something to show and illustrate their point, the others just sat and spoke for about 20 mins about what they do, and blah blah blah.

It was supposed to be more of a "conversation" but it wasn't really. I am not by any means bashing this event. Adonis was a really nice guy, and so were the coordinators and people at the event who were really welcoming. I just expected more I suppose.

I started to get really fed up after a man randomly walked in, and just started voicing his opinion every chance he got, saying random things like "Canada is a third world country....this is bullS##."And it started to get heated, when one of the students hit him back with "why don't you go live in third world country." It just really annoyed me because he was acting weird, walking out the place in a hissy fit and then coming right back in. You could tell he was there for drama and to cause some arguments between people. And it annoyed me to the point where I had to leave. It had been an extremely long day, it was rainy and cold and I had just walked for half an hour with a heavy laptop bag and camera bag, so I wasn't in the mood for an annoying guy who thought he owned the place. Who knows what his problem was.

Essentially, the whole point of this was for everyone to network together, and as a way for youth in general to work together and showcase what they work on.

I'm not being biased, but I really do think Adonis was one of the more interesting speakers. He delivered one of the greatest lines that pretty much sums up our whole project on Regent Park. When discussing how they had been left out of any TTC construction plans, he said to the crowd, "I wonder if they would treat another community this way."
RPTV is a powerful tool in the community, because as one of the guys said, "I needed a place to go to after school." So Adonis, and everyone who is involved with youths, are doing these programs that help to, essentially, keep students out of trouble.