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Newcomer children trail behind in signing up for city activities
thurs march 10, 2016
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Registering for recreation programs in Toronto may be frustrating, but try it without high-speed internet, or a credit card, or a command of English. Advocacy group Social Planning Toronto (SPT) says the children of recent immigrant families still trail behind Canadian-born peers in signing up for city-run activities. This is despite a string of policies passed at City Hall to make distribution of activities and the general treatment of Toronto newcomers fairer. In a report released last week, SPT said 32 per cent of the city’s newcomer children register for extracurricular recreation, compared to 55 per cent of children born in Canada. Their source for this statistic is a Canada-wide federal survey done in 2005, but Sean Meagher, the group’s executive director, said it’s “not inconsistent with the city’s own data.” Young newcomers want to do more active things and get outside of their normal community, he said. “We are not doing >>>putting, page 32
Staff photo/TAMARA SHEPHARD
South Etobicoke Youth Assembly (SEYA) program co-ordinator Janice Karmody, left, keynote speaker and CBC’s Art Exhibitionists host Amanda Parris, SEYA alumna and luncheon MC Amber Morley, LAMP Community Health Centre health promoter Jasmin Dooh, who oversees SEYA, and former CTV News city hall reporter Alicia Markson get together during SEYA’s International Women’s Day luncheon Tuesday at the Mimico Cruising Club. The event was part of SEYA’s year-long Sweet 16 fundraiser to keep the youth-led, youth advocacy and leadership organization operating after funding cuts.
Women’s stories told at SEYA event TAMARA SHEPHARD tshephard@insidetoronto.com Desperately wanting to straighten her curly hair consumed Amanda Parris’
thoughts as a black teenager in England. Parris read Sweet Valley High books, mesmerized by the author’s poetic descriptions of the female characters’ long,
flowing blond locks. Parris’ mother set her hair every morning before school in two or three large braids. One day, a female classmate asked why Parris’ hair “stuck out”.
“I thought gravity was a law. Why doesn’t your hair follow the law?” the girl asked. Parris stood in a school washroom and gazed at herself in >>>speakers, page 29
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