Progress Toronto, Friends of Chinatown (FOCT)  and the Kensington Tenant Network are creating their own digital spaces on Zoom to keep communities connected and informed. 

Progress Toronto has hosted a number of Zoom watch parties for city council meetings, the city budget and even cases at the Supreme Court of Canada. Meanwhile, FOCT and the Kensington Tenant Network have held zoom rooms that run alongside the city’s community consultations on WebEx. FOCT has been mobilizing around the proposed 13-storey building at 315-325 Spadina Ave. And not far from FOCT, Kensington Tenant Network has been mobilizing around the proposed 13-storey building at 419-431 College St. 

Progress Toronto’s watch parties were somewhat inspired by running a Netflix party for Knock Down the House. In the early days of the pandemic, it was a good lesson on the power of chat rooms, creating a domino effect where Progress Toronto’s Zoom rooms inspired FOCT. Then, FOCT zoom rooms inspired the Kensington Tenant Network. CJRU spoke to all three organizations about the benefits of these spaces, how they feel doing this work, and what they hope to achieve through it. 

Listen to the segment below to hear from Saman Tabasinejad of Progress Toronto, Diana Yoon of FOCT and Kyle of the Kensington Tenant Network who asked CJRU not to include their last name.