Meet the Community Organizers: Ryan

Ryan, one of the Community Organizers on the More Moss Park team, talked to us about his passions, personal experiences and—most of all—his connection to Moss Park.

I wanted to become involved with the More Moss Park consultation because…

IMG_0516As an urban planning student, I was curious about how public consultation could be more inclusive of a diverse range of people who are not typically engaged in these kinds of projects. The 519 has done a lot of great work supporting the LGBTQ community, and I wanted to see how public consultation could be done in a way that went beyond the standardized public meeting framework. The Community Participation Team has worked tirelessly to listen to the needs of the current residents of Moss Park Community and I’m thrilled to be working alongside them.

Throughout this summer, I’ve been exposed to multiple community perspectives…

Through data entry and coding work that I’ve done for multiple events, as well as three focus groups I attended. One of the first events I attended was a Covenant House meeting with street-involved youth. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to sit in on the conversation.  It was amazing to get to hear the perspectives of a group who would typically not be included in from major public decision-making processes.

The moment that stands out the most in my mind from those conversations was…

From my first meeting on May 31, 2016, the Community Roundtable at John Innes Community & Recreation Centre. At the meeting, community members shared their feedback with representatives from the City of Toronto and the 519.  My favourite part of the meeting was meeting people before the Roundtable began. Some of the other Community Organizers and I were handing out samosas, coffee and tea. It was my first introduction to the community and I enjoyed chatting with them, learning their names and shaking their hands. That was a great experience.  It also made me really excited to know that these are the people of Moss Park who will, hopefully, not only enjoy a new community centre once it is built, but will also feel ownership of it and consider it to be their space.

Ryan Photo 2

The issue that I keep hearing about in my conversations is…

Harm reduction in many different ways. It’s something that is largely new to me. I think harm reduction can have several definitions, but I understand it as assisting people who struggle with addiction or find themselves in difficult situations to stay safe and minimize harm. It’s important to support all members of our communities and I think that this is something that often gets missed in discussions about our planning public spaces.

The best thing about being a community organizer is…

Knowing there are innovative ways to do consultation and community work in a very grassroots sense. What’s interesting about this project is that there’s no agenda going in. The plan is not done and this has not yet gone to Toronto City Council for approval. We’re working on this with the community to submit a proposal that is developed from the ground up.

My connection to Moss Park is…

This project! I’m excited to see how this turns out. I think there’s a lot of good that could come from it!