Giving teens a creative way forward
East-end centre empowers through multimedia program
The Studio 2 Multimedia Program at East Metro Youth Services is changing lives. It might even be saving them.
Just ask people such as Christina Michel, a young woman with highfunctioning autism, who has found her niche in photography.
“They’ve changed my life, they’ve turned it around. Before East Metro, I wasn’t OK, I’ll be honest. I didn’t know what having friends was really like before then, I didn’t know what being included felt like,” Michel said in an interview. “I thought I would just go to use the space, but it didn’t stay that way because I can’t exactly tear myself away from here anymore. I love this place.”
Andre Small learned video production at the youth centre’s third-floor office space at Markham Rd. and Ellesmere Ave. — so well, in fact, that he’s started his own company, exclusivestv.com.
Now Small works with some of Toronto’s and Canada’s newest and established hip-hop artists, providing online video content that he hopes will one day be available on Netflix.
“A lot of the celebrities, they know who I am,” Small said with evident pride.
“I was basically chilling around the wrong crowd. They (East Metro) welcomed me, and they helped me get on the right track. They’re not just associates, they’re family, especially Studio 2. I don’t really see any other establishment doing what East Metro’s doing.”
Terence Jean-Charles first came to the agency five years ago when he was homeless, kicked out after fighting with his mother.
“This girl took me to East Metro, I met her at a homeless shelter,” JeanCharles said.
He added that program co-ordinator Colin Scheyen helped him find housing and a way forward.
“I like how I went from negative to positive. Even my mom, she’s so proud. Now I bring my little brother,” Jean-Charles added.
Scheyen, who’s been running the program for five years, said it offers young people the chance to learn “creative industry” skills in areas such as photography, videography, music recording and engineering and script writing.
“The creative industry is actually the fastest-growing economy in Toronto right now and there’s not a lot of training programs that are there (for people) to gain those skills. And if there are, it’s in a college environment where they have to pay, and sometimes tuition fees at this point in a lot of young people’s lives is not realistic,” said the former high school teacher.
“When you’re a young person, maybe you haven’t had a positive experience in school and you’ve been told your entire life that you’re a C student or a D student. That idea of learning is really scary, because you’ve been told your entire life that you’re not good at it,” Scheyen said.
“I have seen some youth who have succeeded in enormous ways and have learned so many skills . . . simply because that whole idea of failing has been taken out of the equation.”
East Metro Youth Services also offers a drop-in program for young people, a newcomer program for new Canadians as well as mental health services and counselling.
While describing the multimedia program as his “passion and . . . life’s work,” Scheyen said it wouldn’t exist without the United Way’s support.
“The United Way has been an incredible sponsor for our program. They’ve allowed us to be successful by allowing us to set the mandate. They’ve put a lot of trust in our organization. They’ve allowed us to be creative with the program and responsive to the needs of the youth and the community,” Scheyen said.
“Without them, there’s no way this program would exist,” he added.