Thomas Claudio is a Cooperative student at FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

On April 13, 2023 community members involved on the Regent Park SDP Planning Committee met to discuss the upcoming SDP Progress Report to the community as well as other issues. The Regent Park Social Development Plan is a community wide initiative aimed at fostering social cohesion and inclusion. The meeting was chaired by Greg Gary, an agency member representing K-Club.

The meeting began with City staff member, Daniella Castello, reading out the key tasks and deadlines related to the planning of the SDP Progress Report event.  The report is an in-person and hybrid event that is scheduled to be held on May 10th at the Daniels Spectrum Centre.  The event is designed to showcase the activities of the SDP workgroups and committees over the past year and engage more residents in participating in the SDP.

Following discussion related to the planning of the Progress Report, Adonis Huggins gave a short update on the Funding Task Group and their scheduled meeting with the City staff related to the 2024 SDP grants. Additionally, there was an update from Daniella about the newly launched grant called “Identity ‘n Impact” that focuses on youth-led projects. The main purpose of the grant is to help fund and encourage young people to come forward with ideas for programs that focus on youth-engagement that can improve the community. The grant emerged as a result of youth getting involved with violent and serious crime. The city recognized youth are socially and systematically disadvantaged due to poverty, social issues, family issues, and a general lack of opportunities. The Identity ‘n Impact grant will hopefully give the youth a way to be a more productive members of society.

The last item on the agenda was a discussion on how to deal with requests related to archival recordings of meetings. It was agreed that this item would be best left with the Communications Table who is drafting a policy governing recordings of meetings.