Regent Park Tech Lending Library

By Dimitrije Martinovic
Dimitrije is a community journalist with FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

In Regent Park where the work of the revitalization continues, residents groups like the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association (RPNA) are constantly engaged with a broad spectrum of community members, community groups and organizations to leverage equitable local economic development opportunities and community benefits from Regent Park’s last phases of revitalization.

Today we bring you one more example of how community groups in Regent Park take the lead in coordinating people and resources to enable residents to overcome issues that may become barriers of one kind or another. In this case, the Regent Park Tech Lending Library is a project that seeks to push back against the digital divide. The Tech Lending Library hopes to do this by providing education and access to economic opportunities, connecting participants to government services, healthcare and tele-media, and hands-on strategies for dealing with the impacts of social media.

And of course, they lend laptops and tablets.

The Regent Park Tech Lending Library was an initiative of CSI. As the meeting began Walied Khogali, the Co-Chair for Community Building Working Group of the Social Development took the opportunity to present Denise Souedain - O'Leary, the former Director of Community Wealth Strategy, and Special Projects – CSI Regent Park, with a certificate of appreciation for her long-time commitment to the area. Located in the Daniels Spectrum building, CSI operated a co-sharing workspace from 2012 – 2020 which acted as an incubator for social purpose entrepreneurship.

Abdi Rahman, project coordinator briefly spoke about the history of the Lending Library and introduced Ehsan Shah Haque, Arif Rahman, and Mufeesa Summsumean, all Regent Park residents and now Tech Library teaching assistants.

The funding for the Tech Lending Library include the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), the Centre For Social Innovation (CSI), the Yonge Street Mission (YSM), Artscape, and  the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association (RPNA).

The Tech Lending Library is located in the Community Living Room at th Daniels Spectrum Building. The library operates 7 days a week 1:00pm – 7:00pm, and is free to Regent Park residents.