By Dimitrije Martinovic
Dimitrije is a staff at FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

The Community Building Working Group is one the four working groups of the Regent Social Development Plan (SDP), a community-wide initiative aimed at fostering unity and togetherness among all the different residents and stakeholder groups in the community.

In the first meeting of 2023, the Regent Park Community Building Working Group members came together on January 11, 2023, to discuss current and future activities. The meeting was chaired by Joel Klassen, an agency representative from YSM and co-chair of the Community Building Working Group.

The business of the meeting began with a report from the Access to Recreation Coordinator, Ismail Afrah. Ismail began his report by reminding members that he is taking over the responsibilities and activities that was coordinated by resident Mary Henkelman , who resigned from the Access to Recreation committee. Access and Recreation has been working with the City Parks and Recreation to set up an advisory to help inform programming and gain community input. At the meeting Ismail announced that a call for interested residents to participate on the advisory.

Following Ismail’s report, Paula Garcia, a Young Street Mission (YSM) staff member, was invited to speak about the SDP Evaluation and Bench Mark Sub-Committee. Paula Garcia, presented a short over-view of the Evaluation and Bench Mark Sub-Committee. Paula explained that each committee of the SDP has a twofold function, one is to implement the key activities of the group, and the other is to report back to the city on the progress of those activities through evaluations and analysis of those findings. Paula will be giving more information in follow-up meetings, to be held on Jan 26, 2023, and Feb 7, 2023.

The meeting ended with a discussion led by Rabia Alsabaie and Gail Lynch about the possibilities of receiving support from the Community Building Working group in helping to organize Black History Month activities at Nelson Mandela School during the month of February. Rabia is involved in the school as a parent. Rabia will return with more information in future meetings.