Dr. Nombuso Dlamini

Two major roads, Jane Street and Finch Avenue, intersect in the northwestern corner of Toronto. The neighborhood around this intersection, known by Canadians as Jane-Finch, is home to about 80,000 people of diverse racial, ethnic, religious and generational backgrounds. With a high population density, a high concentration of racial and ethnic minorities, low-income housing, gangs, drug problems and violence Jane-Finch is often viewed as a Canadian equivalent to an American ghetto (O’Grady, Parnaby & Schikschneit, 2010 in James, 2012).

Well-being – World Health Organization Eckersley (2011) Woodgate and Leach (2010) Bourke and Geldens (2007) Photovoice – Royce SW, Parra-Median D and Messias DH (2006) Wang C and Burris MA (1997) Youth – Campbell D, Erbstein N, Fabionar J et al. (2010) Checkoway B and Richards-Schuster K (2003) Camino LA (2000)

We use youth data to trouble simplistic and/or common-sense notions about how youth from marginalized communities understand the meaning of, and engage in, community well-being. Determinants of Well-Being The Absence of Well-Being Distractions from Well-Being

 Photo-voice is a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique.  As a practice based in the production of knowledge, photo-voice has three main goals:  To enable people to record and reflect their community's strengths and concerns  To promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs  To reach policymakers.

 A group of youth recruited and trained in a similar fashion to the PV group conducted short, quick interviews with about 50 people recruited at a popular shopping mall in Jane- Finch.  Approximately 50 participants were recruited by youth interviewers, offered $10 for their participation, and interviewed briefly on their experiences on one of the following topics: community, well-being, "turf" issues, and violence.

 Capable of informing and engaging in participatory action research  Viewed as critically involved in organization and/or program development, community planning and community evaluation.

"In Jane-Finch you get robbed out here, you get killed out here. A lot of bad things can happen to you out here.“ "[Parents] just don’t care […] if their children is evolving in crimes, gangs or violence. All they care is having a baby and they don’t have a chance to come home and […] take care of their children. Everyday they will just go to work and come home, they don’t see their children at home and they just let their children run free do whatever they want […] Sometimes they go shop lifting, sometimes they sell marijuana, sometimes they fight for their friends and they go to jail for that. Basically this area is, is a concentration of new comers and not many people are educated and the parents don’t care about them."

 Through photographs and narratives, youth also linked wellness to acts and feelings of resilience and accomplishment.  The youth explained that the “outside world” saw them as “roughin’ it” and as less likely to succeed because of where they live.

 Through the accounts from youth and other residents from Jane-Finch, we advance a counter-narrative that highlights the important role of families and communities play in ensuring youth development and well-being (seeing communities as the roots that allow roses to grow in concrete), and point out the need to address the structural constraints that limit opportunities for urban youth (softening the concrete and, maybe more audaciously, doing the work to turn Jane-Finch into a rose garden).