>> Regent Park Focus

Photovoice
The first stages of the Regent Park Focus Youth Voices project was conducted over July and August of 2002 and involved eight youth. The participants learned photography techniques and went out into their community to take pictures of the good things and bad things in their lives, things that they want to change and things that they want to celebrate. From this exercise and many discussions about what they found, the participants created a Photovoice slide show.

The Photo voice slide show was featured as part of a youth media showcase hosted by Regent Park Focus on November 17th 2002 and currently remains on exhibit at Regent Park Focus.

Tough Guise Presentation
In the second stage of the project, from October 2002 to March 2003, participants involved in creating Photovoice joined with other youth members of Regent Park Focus who were in the process of developing a peer violence awareness presentation. Having identified violence as a common concern, the two groups pooled their creative juices and came up with Tough Guise.

Tough Guise is a multimedia presentation that examines the way masculinity is portrayed in popular culture and its link to the practice of tough posing and violence among boys.

The Tough Guise presentation was first publicly exhibit at Regent Park Focus on May 24 & 25 2003, as part of the Open Doors Toronto Festival and continues to be used by Regent Park Focus as an education tool to help stimulate discussion and awareness about violence.