SDP Discusses Youth Leadership & Engagement

Adonis Huggins
(Adonis is a staff journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)

Welcome to RPTV Weekly News Show Episode 26. In this weekly news show hosted by RPTV reporters, we present news that impacts on Regent Park and the surrounding areas. Episode 26 for the week of April 6th to April 13th, 2022 features segments on: SDP Planning Committee Discusses Youth Leadership- Report of March 24th SDP Meeting ( 01:26 min); Arrest Made After Fatal Stabbing in Toronto's Regent Park Area ( 05:21 min); Sherbourne Street Property Could Be Expropriated and Used for Affordable Housing ( 06:08 min); Indigenous Report: The Pope Apologizes for Abuse of Indigenous Children in Canada's Residential Schools ( 08:56 min); Temporary Homeless Shelters in Toronto Hotels to Start Closing this Spring ( 11:51 min); Ford Government Pledges to Increase Minimum Wage to $15.50 ( 14:19 min); Covid-19 & Vaccination Update: Toronto's Top Doctor Asks Residents to Put Masks Back On / Vaccine Clinics in Regent Park Area ( 16:12 min); Events and Jobs in Regent Park Community ( 19:36 min).
Below is one of the featured stories in this week's news.

SDP Planning Committee discusses Youth Leadership- report of March 24 SDP meeting.

Adonis Huggins
(Adonis is a staff journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)
 
The Regent Park Social Development Plan is a community wide initiative aimed at building social cohesion and inclusion. The plan revolves around 4 priority areas each represented by a working committee. The four working groups are Communication, Safety, Community Building and Employment and Economic Development. The body tasked with coordinating the 4 working groups is the SDP Planning Committee.   The committee comprises of all the other members of the working groups and sub-committees.
 
The March 31, 2022 meeting of the SDP Planning Committee was held over Zoom and chaired by Walied Khogali, a TCHC resident member.   After a reading of the purpose of the committee, the meeting began with a presentation from Gail Lynch about the monthly Employment and Economic Development Committee. Gail presented data related to a survey of the committee’s work for the month of March.   According to Gail, the great majority of attendees of the E&ED working group is TCHC residents and there is a variety of ways that members use to get information about the meetings.   Gail also reported that despite service providers involvement in the committee there still is not an agency co-chair for the group. One issue that was raised was around the need for youth employment mentorship. The committee will be doing more work in the future to explore this issue.   An issue regarding the need for a kitchen that would support the activities of all the working groups in the SDP.
 
The next issue that was presented was from Murwan Khogali, a resident member, related to youth representation.   Murwan feels that youth should be involved in all the working committees of the SDP and that there should be a youth co-chair for each of the four working group. In response, Deany Peters, an agency member, stated that only having a single youth as co-chair than it is tokenism and not real representation.   One or two youth at a meeting is not youth engagement. Isa Ali from Youth Empowering Youth, agreed with Deany stating that youth don’t feel comfortable in adult structures and spaces and it would be better for youth to have their own spaces where youth could provide input on their own needs.   Diana Mavunduse, an agency member, was also in agreement. Murwan adamantly disagreed and argued passionately about the need to give youth leadership roles on each of the committees.   Members sided on one side of the issue or the other.   Ismail Afrah argued that to implement a youth co-chair position on each of the committees that it would require changes in the terms of reference however there is nothing to prevent youth from participating on the committee’s or to have a youth chair on the committee as a representative of a TCHC or Market co-chair. Michael Rosenberg argued that the issue is youth engagement and leadership and its not about having a youth co-chair or not.   Joel Klassen made a suggestion that Murwan should convene a meeting with youth where he explains what the SDP is and how they would like to participate. Richard Kirwan from the City, reminded the group that youth make up a huge part of the Regent Park population and that if youth are not part of the SDP then there is a huge population that is missing.   Ismail concluded the conversation by saying that no one is against having youth engaged in the SDP, the question is how?   It was agreed that Murwan would lead a conversation on how to involve youth at the upcoming alignment meeting.