#9108 - Dec 1991

Digital Archiving Completed by the Ethnography Lab, A University of Toronto Anthropology Initiative
and Produced in Collaboration with David Perlman/Wholenote Media Inc between July-December 2015.
Page fourteen, Kensington Market Drum
~~~
~ · ~
Shell~nger ~ .
I am 15 and a foster child. I don't know if I need to explain what one is, but'l still will.
A foster kid is someone who is taken into a family that has no relation to them and let
live there under their rules. A lot of people confuse them with group homes. In a
group home you live under Children's Aid rules.
'
A lot of kids live in a group home because a judge forces them to, where in ·a
foster home you go.'there because you may be taken out of your home for different
reasons or kicked out.
Everytime I tell someone that I live in a foster home they always ask me what
I did so bad to be in one. Well if getting yourself kicked out of an abusive home is bad
than that's what I did.
On June 17, I was kicked out. I lived with my best friend till July 9, where I
got picked up for a detention warrant. At her house, I was pretty much myself. We
had no rules so we hung out all night in the wrong crowd. On July 15, I ran from
detention and moved in with my brother, Rony. That was great till he started dating
my good friend. He couldn't handle her dating him and being my friend. On Sept. 6, .
I slept at her house. He called me the next day to tell me to get out. I then went over
and got beat up by him. That same day, thanks to my friend, I moved in with his
family. Here they treat me more like a real kid, their kid than some kid off the street.
Since I came to live here my life had some changes, changes for the better. I
don't hang around the wrong crowd anymore. · I'm back in school and I haven't been
in trouble with anyone in the longest time. I can talk to my foster parents about
anything and they'll help me deal with it.
So this just shows you don't have to be bad to get in a good foster home.
\ "'
DRUGS
by Emily Smith
December 12 1991
Drugs are bad for you. You could die. You
could get sick. Your brain gets messed up.
You don:t want to know how it feels to live in
my neighbourhood. There's druggies all over
the place. You hear screams in the middle of
the night. When I go to gymnastics I see
teenage kids sitting in the back yard smoking
drUQS.
-Imagine being a new born baby. Smoking
drugs when you;re pregnant could kill the
baby. Even if the baby is born it would either
die in a year or two, or it would be very sick.
But it would be a miracle if it would be
healthy.
AND WHAT IT COULD DO TO YOU
Over 10,000 people in this world are doing
drugs or were doing drugs. What I think about
what we can do. I think we can talk to people
about drugs. And put it on TV. And even put
,it on the radio. And talk about what drugs can ·
do to you. And show them pictures of the
brain when you're on drugs.
SO SAY NO TO DRUGS
Fairest Hill is more ...
More A we some
More than a great
singer and entertainer.
Fairest Hill is a teacher
Teaching the "RIGHT
STUFF"'
Fairest Hill says "Get up"
"I won't sell out.
Won't sell my body out.
Won't sell out MY MIND. "
AND "Yes I Can"
The tough guys? They're
dead. They're under the
ground ...
SAY NO NOT YES TO DRUGS
A POEM ABOUT DRUGS
Drugs drugs
Go away
Don't come back
Another day
Micki's friends have been
drinking. Would you get into
their car? Tqke a cab? A
streetcar? Phone home?
I
DRUG FREE!
MTHA and Alexandra Park's
HEAL THY LIFESTYLES DAY
by Alma Penn/DRUM-staff
Hill shared this up philosophy with a singing, waving and
swaying crowd of little children, teens and adults at the ·
Healthy Life Styles Day, Sunday November 24 at the
Alexandra Park Community Centre. Co-sponsored by the
community and the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority
for National Drug Awareness Week, the event featured
speakers, performers, displays and activities for all ages.
Everywhere you turned, the message was essentially the
same: you are good enough, and important enough to be
worth something in the world. So make informed choices.
Stick to what you feel right about. Say no when it's
important.
There was a fire-and-brimstone revival-style opening
sermon delivered by former football player Dave Mann, the
MTHA Theatre Group's brisk and punchy participation play,
a gentle puppet show by Concerned Kids, a Chilean yo.uth
folk-dance troupe, rap music with YBP (that's Young Black
and Positive, folks) and finally Fairest Hill, whose aggressively
uplifting personal style of funk/rap/blues made the rafters ring
· (arid even burst a few balloons!) .
'
l
Clear message.
it was fun and good'
i liked the singer and
the hot dog
my sister emily got
to make a shirt
"~ the end
by amy