Bringing Street Safety To Young People: 2025 Dance & Street Safety Series

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

 

Cheers To 10 Years: Remembering My First Class

2018 promoting our 1st Newcomer’s Dance Too! Project in Flemingdon Park (funded by the Toronto Arts Council)

At the 2015 Syrian Refugee Wellness Conference, hosted by Adeena, founder of the Afghan Women’s Organization

Cheers To 10 Years: Remembering My First Class

By: Sumera Garcia-Quadri

I remember running my very first Zumba Fitness program in April 2014. It was an 8-week program at the Annex with 4 participants, all of whom saw my little flyer at a local laundromat or cafe. I had a black Denon speaker, a Nokia cell phone with my playlist on it, and a pair of colorful sneakers from Payless. I was also lucky to have the support of my grandma, sister, aunt, and a few friends who would participate in my classes as a way to reassure me that what I was doing was good.

Before instructing and organizing community group fitness programs, I was at a women's circuit gym. While it was a good start, I wanted to enter an area of fitness that made sense to me. Zumba Fitness felt RIGHT, although I had never taken a Zumba Fitness class before signing up for the instructor training. I trained in Latin dances since the age of 13 (dances like Cuban Salsa, New York Mambo, Pachanga, Cha Cha, and Merengue) so finding a dance fitness system that combined Latin rhythms and movements was a dream. I was also desperate to maintain a healthy weight and active lifestyle during the daytime, which I couldn’t find in dance. Latin dance outings/socials were usually in the evenings and in a nightclub where you would usually dress up, where pretty shoes, and hope to find lots of good dance partners. Although I left Zumba Fitness in 2015, I owe a lot to its Colombian founder, Beto Perez, as it kept me and millions of others grooving, burning calories, and inspired.

Since then, I made it a habit to pilot group fitness programs that you wouldn't usually see in a gym like Pound Fit (a drum workout), Mom and Baby Latin Dance Fitness, Kid's Fitness Circuits, Kid's Yoga Safari, and eventually, women's Bollywood Fitness. I had no idea back then that Bollywood Fitness would take off the way it did and that we would be known for our seasonal Bollywood dance and fitness programs. Fast forward 10 years, I'm now running approximately 20 seasonal dance and fitness programs a year across various health centers, women's and kid’s organizations, and community spaces, as well as a free youth annual dance and safety event in 5 under-communities.

Truthfully, I experienced a lot of ups and downs due to not being a brick-and-mortar business or about the BOTTOM LINE. It’s hard to keep members happy, maintain community partnerships, and train instructors on how to run safe, effective, and fun classes. I had taken off most of 2018 to think about whether I wanted to continue in the fitness industry or not. Then there was COVID-19 which on one hand, set back Toronto Fitness for almost 2 years, but then brought us the gift of virtual classes.

I would like to thank our regular members for giving us a class to come to each season. Without them, we would have been out of business a long time ago! (P.S. I remember the names of all of our members).

I would to thank our regular instructors for keeping us moving - Alejandra, Ceejay, Pekhna, Mithila, Cheryl, and Deepak. A thank you to Aleya, a friend and fitness mentor, who has listened to my struggles at all times of the day and has referred me to the best kid Latin dance instructors. A shout out to our oldest self-defense pals Niv Goffman, Gil Katz, and Jesse Solloum from Krav Maga Maleh Canada for working alongside me since 2019 to get more youth moving and feeling safe.

Cheers to 10 years of moving and grooving,

Sumera