Regent Park Community Centre: is it really theirs?

By Maria Nguyen

"Is it really ours? 28 years and waiting..." is a documentary made by the youth at Regent Park TV. It documents the community's struggle against bureacracy to own and run Regent Park Community Centre.

The government promised Regent Park residents a community centre back in 1969, but it wasn't until 1985 that the Regent Park Community Centre was built at 203 Sackville St.


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But even after it was built the city's Park and Recreations technically ran it, not the people in RP.

The documentary opens with three teenagers getting thrown out of the building for loitering. The youths argue that the centre should be a place for kids to hang out. One of the characters in the doc asked a good question: Why is it that when it's adults it's socializing, but when it's kids it's loitering?

"They haven't been welcome to come in and say 'What colours do you like? Let's paint murals. What does Regent Park mean to you? What does the community centre mean to you? Write it on the walls,'" says a RP resident.

RP residents are still waiting to run a place they've partially invested in and was promised to them. And the youths are still waiting to have a place to freely gather where they can choose activities to engage in.

The mural project, I know for one, is a positive way of giving young people a place and platform to gather, discuss and create based on the issues and concerns that they have living in RP. With more than half of RP residents being children and youths, maybe it needs more outlets like that for kids to foster ideas -- or simply just to hang out.

Watch the documentary: