Bringing Street Safety To Young People: 2025 Dance & Street Safety Series
By: Sumera Garcia-Quadri
This June, I was lucky to run three FUN-FILLED sessions for youth ages 13 to 19 for the 2025 PartciPACTION Community Challenge. With their generosity, the City of Toronto, and 3 host organizations, we got approximately 40 youth to turn off their cells and BUST A MOVE!
Since 2019, the goal of the safety series has been to get youth to move more and feel safe as they walk around their neighborhoods, with an emphasis on those living in areas tackling high gun violence rates.
I believe kids and teens should feel safe when walking to and from school, from a friend’s house, and from work or volunteering in the day and night.
Here are 5 takeaways from the June series
For the first time, all of our sessions were co-ed with a high number of teen boys ages 13 to 19 participating
Youth learned how their stance, posture, and eye contact could play a BIG role in how safe they were on streets through fun games and drills
We touched on distracted walking (looking down at a cell or listening to loud music on our earphones while crossing the street) and how certain footwear can lead to slip and falls. We agreed that personal injuries SUCK and can keep us away from the activities we love, like sports and dance!
Together, boys and girls brain stormed ways to address and escape different situations like being followed home from a party to someone trying to follow them home from the mall
All host organizations were consulted in advance on how we could deliver a session for their community effectively
I would like to thank our host organizations for collaborating with me for a 6th year, Jessica and Tanya at AlbionBGC, Cori at RCHC, and Alyssa at McGregor Park CC and Eileen at Malvern CC. Thank you to our sweet dance instructors Jess and Alejandra.
Please keep an eye out for our 2nd kid’s Halloween Dance & Safety series coming in October.
Sumera