At-risk youth 'living the dream'

At-risk youth 'living the dream'


Regent Park student gets help from scholarship program to continue studies

Oct 29, 2008 04:31 AM
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Kristin Rushowy
Education Reporter

Of his group of friends growing up in Regent Park, four have died. Two are "into street life." Two went from high school straight to the workforce.

Ismail Aboobakker is the only one to go to university.

"We had dreams of doing great things together, and only one of us is doing it," said the 22-year-old in a recent interview. "I am living the dream for all of us."

Aboobakker is in his fourth year at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus, studying math with plans to be a high school teacher. This is also the fourth year he has received a scholarship for teens who grew up at-risk.

The scholarship, from the Yonge Street Mission, will benefit 30 youths this year who either attend the Yonge Street Mission's Evergreen Centre for Street Youth or the community centre in Regent Park.

It provides them with a yearly stipend to help offset the cost of their studies and matches them with a volunteer mentor. The mission is holding a gala fundraiser for the scholarship at the Royal Ontario Museum on Thursday.

"University is a total change from high school," said Aboobakker, who volunteers at the mission and has himself been asked to be a mentor. "It either makes you or breaks you."

Strong family support helped get him through elementary and high school. But he had trouble adjusting to post-secondary life. He was skipping classes and in the first semester of his first year failed two courses. He was subsequently suspended from the campus's junior varsity basketball team.

When he appealed to one professor to bump his calculus mark from the high 40s to a 50 so he could pass, the professor told him that "just passing" wasn't good enough, that he should strive to be better.

That got his attention. "I pulled up my socks – to my waist," he said, adding he repeated the calculus course and earned an A-plus.

Domanique Grant is another scholarship recipient. She just started her first year at York University, studying theatre and psychology.

"The scholarship helps me put a lot more time into studying rather than worrying about work" and how to pay for school, says the singer and actress, who performed at the Luminato Festival last summer.

Barbara Walkden, the mission's director of development, says the scholarship program began back in 2003, with a group of supporters raising $150,000 and matching funds from the government. Then, in 2005, a donor gave $1 million to set up an endowment fund for teens from Regent Park or those who had lived on the streets, and since then the mission has given out 20 to 30 scholarships a year, ranging from $1,500 to $3,000. Students also receive a reconditioned laptop from Dell.

"The (students) are from struggling families in the Regent Park area, some are raised by their grandparents," she said. "For the street youth, so many have suffered abuse of one form or another that's led them to the street. I think we are able to take youth that might not otherwise have an interest in furthering their education."

Students can use the money to attend the post-secondary institution of their choice. George Brown is a popular option but students are spread out across the province and beyond: one is studying nursing at the University of Windsor, another international relations at Concordia, and another political science at the University of Toronto.

Walkden said, "The only way out of poverty is education."

http://www.thestar.com/article/526449