October 13, 2020, Regent Park SDP Stakeholder's Table Meeting

By Adonis Huggins 
Adonis is a staff member of FOCUS Media Arts Centre

The Regent Park Social Development Plan Stakeholder's Table consists of residents, groups and agencies serving the Regent Park area. The group is a decision making body dedicated to the implementation of the Social Development Plan and its activities. The SDP Plan consists of activities related to four areas: 1. Communication, 2. Employment and Economic Development, 3. Safety and 4. Community Building. Coordination of the SDP Stakeholders Table comes from the Planning Committee. Todays meeting was chaired by Paulos Gebreyesus from the Regent Park Community Health Centre and Lloyd Pike representing the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association (RPNA). The following is a short summary of the meeting provided by Adonis Huggins, representing Regent Park TV, the group officially charged with the task of documenting and archiving the SDP process.

 In today's meeting two TCHC residents, Murshida Mueen and Ines Garcia, presented on an evaluation framework called the Evaluation Benchmark Process. The framework was developed and proposed by Young Street Mission (YSM) as a way of evaluating the SDP Plan and its activities. After taking questions posed to Ines and Murshida, the Evaluation Benchmark Process was accepted unanimously and will be used to evaluate the SDP. In the next item, Alice Ye from Toronto Community Housing (TCHC) and a member of the SDP Planning Committee, presented a $50,000 request for funding operational activities consisting of 5 separate initiatives, deemed by the Planning Committee, to be important in supporting and engaging residents in the SDP process. This item was not presented in detail, as members were encouraged to review the supportive documents provided by email beforehand. The funding request passed unanimously no questions asked.

The final item was related to an individual and private request from Ibrahim Afrah. Ibrahim is a member of the Employment & Economic committee, the Communications committee and sits on the Planning committee. Ibrahim is also the founder of a grassroots private enterprise called Visions of Tomorrow. Ibrahim's request is to have the SDP Stakeholders Table endorse a Visions of Tomorrow proposal to set up a physical and virtual touring service in which visitors (university groups, conference groups, etc) of Regent Park would pay a touring fee and be guided by paid community members. Although there was a long discussion and many questions, the proposal was well received and with the exception of one person abstaining and one person raising a conflict of interest (a family member of Ibrahim), the proposal was unanimously endorsed by the SDP.