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Success Beyond Limits’ Youth Respond to Toronto Star Articles “Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable” & “Future opens wide for Jane-Finch teens at downtown Toronto career camp”

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Alana Persaud’s (SBL Placement Student/ Seneca Student) response to Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable on March 13th, 2014 & Future opens wide for Jane-Finch teens at downtown Toronto career camp on March 14th, 2014 :

 

Being a placement student with the Success Beyond Limits Education program through a program at Seneca College has been filled with great opportunities and excellent experiences working with youth and staff. Taking part in SBL March Break program gave me a chance to spend more time in connecting with the youth and also gave them a chance to listen and learn about themselves. These youth are truly intelligent and are always striving to succeed; be it in their academic studies or the time and effort they put into the SBL afterschool program. It brings big disappointment to me reading the article posted by the Toronto Star. Having to read such negative and stereotypical remarks was just rude and insulting.

 

Why is my community always downgraded for being known as the “needy” and assuming that these youths and families have no future? This is just a ridiculous ongoing issue and it needs to come to an end now. When we productively engage in preparing our youth for job opportunities, post secondary opportunities or taking them out for some fun it is always noted as a negative helpless act of kindness through the eyes of the media. For this, our youth and community members have been greatly shocked by these implications.

 

Regardless of the labeling and ranking, it is not the people that are to be blamed for what goes on in our community. Things happen and they happen everywhere not just in one community. We are always out there trying to make a change and we do make a difference but for some reason people are unable to accept this change. I will go out of my way to ensure that the media acknowledges my response as well as my peers and has sincerity in apologizing for this unacceptable post. A story does not have one side.

 

Sincerely,

 

Alana Persaud (SBL Placement Student/Seneca student)

 

 

Cawsalya Nithyantharajah’s (SBL student/Westview Centennial student) response to Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable on March 13th, 2014:

 

I strongly believe that the article Black Creek neighboorhood deemed Toronto’s least livable is a very disrespectful article. They are acting like they know us and they really do not. They want to bring us down and give the community a bad look. I was born and raised in Jane and Finch and I personally find my community to be an amazing place. The writers are making it seem like we are not wealthy and making it look like we are a bunch of uneducated dummies.

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Cawsalya Nithyantharajah (SBL student/Westview Centennial student)

 

 

 

Jumoke Jimoh’s (SBL Student/ Westview Centennial student) response to Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable on March 13th, 2014:

 

I felt very hurt by this article.  I feel Jane and Finch is already judged so much and for this article to say that the Jane and Finch community is rated the worst community in Toronto hurts.  I think if other communities were focused on as much as Jane and Finch, people would not target the Jane Finch community as much.  It hurts the most because people only see Jane and Finch for the bad things and do not even consider the people that have a lot of potential and the ones that offer a lot to the community.  Jane and Finch has so much talent, but no one notices because they are too focused on the bad things that come up in the news.  People do not realize other communities also have their ups and downs.  Overall, maybe the statistics are true, but this article was not needed because of the amount of negativity it portrays.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Jumoke Jimoh’s (SBL student/ Westview Centennial student)

 

 

Kareem Bennett’s (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial Student) response to Future opens wide for Jane-Finch teens at downtown Toronto career camp on March 14th, 2014:

The Toronto Star’s article on our programming completely took our message and focus out of context. This post portrays us as ignorant. I believe the journalist had a very narrow outlook on what kind of community Jane & Finch is. They completely misunderstood what our program’s focus is, which in the papers, makes our community seem worse off than it really is. I believe the article was written out of sympathy and stereotypically speaking, this only creates problems for youth in our program and in the community.

 

Sincerely,

 

Kareem Bennett’s (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial student)

 

 

 

Sabrina Gajadhar’s (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial student) response to Future opens wide for Jane-Finch teens at downtown Toronto career camp on March 14th, 2014:
Living in the Jane and Finch community all my life it is safe to say that I am growing up the right way, like most of the kids in this area. A very large percent of Westview teachers are teachers who have attended Westview themselves. This shows evidently that the area is not a problem the media portrays it to be. Success Beyond Limits did not save the teens as this article attempts to imply but has made us better. We as Jane and Finch students are not doomed, but rather misunderstood. Success Beyond Limits’ youth and all students in the area in general are going to be successful no matter how “unlivable” the area is.

 

Sincerely,

 

Sabrina Gajadhar’s (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial student)

 

 

 

Saifullah Khan’s (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial student) response to Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable on March 13th, 2014:

As I read the article Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable over and over words cannot express how I feel. We as a community and an organization (Success Beyond Limits) like to think positive in every situation we are dealt with. Reading these articles in the newspaper will not only reflect bad on us as a community but the self-esteem of the individuals living in Jane & Finch will lower since the article claims to see no improvements.

 

Sincerely,

 

Saifullah Khan (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial student)

 

 

 

Tysha Tomlinson’s (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial student) response to Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable on March 13th, 2014:

 

Reading the article Black Creek neighbourhood deemed Toronto’s least livable has brought numerous amounts of hateful thoughts and emotions towards the Toronto Star. It has made me realize how ignorant individuals outside off the Jane and Finch community can really be.

 

The words written in this article are extremely shameful on our society, but I am very glad and fortunate to get the chance to say they are untrue. It is unfortunate that people who live outside of Jane and Finch have nothing but negativity to say about a beautiful community they know nothing of. I was personally offended by this hateful message the Toronto Star has published. It is very sad that the numerous amounts of positive programs in Jane and Finch such as Success Beyond Limits had to be portrayed in this way. Success Beyond Limits is an amazing program that helps many youth and is just one of the many great organizations in Jane and Finch that help Jane and Finch be a great place to live.

 

As a resident of Jane and Finch I would like to say your article was false and created many more negative names for our community. Jane and Finch is a beautiful community where many amazing people live and grow to become wonderful people in our world and that is what should had been announced in your article.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Tysha Tomlinson (SBL Mentor/Westview Centennial student)

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