Learn more about Krissan and the Scarborough Environmental Association at Change Made's public art installation launch at Scarborough Museum (@tohistorymuseums)
Krissan Veerasingam featured at The Change Made Installation
Krissan Veerasingam featured at The Change Made Installation
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Krissan reflects, “If you're from a well-connected or from a well-to-do neighbourhood or family, you're going to get professional photos taken throughout the course of your life, just by you existing in that family. Here, you might not even get a haircut. I didn't get a haircut from a professional barber until I was 23, and there's a lot of youth like that in this community.”
“In Toronto, youth unemployment is at 20 per cent and if it’s 20 per cent in Toronto, it’s much worse in Scarborough just because of racism and employment discrimination as it exists,” Krissan Veerasingam said. “We want to see not just Conrad’s providing these opportunities, but also the government has to step up and provide these opportunities as well, because it’s such a systemic issue.”
Veerasingam says the interim bus lanes implemented by the city are a “Band-Aid solution,” and that a transit line like the Eglinton East LRT would require financial backing from the province and the federal government. “When we don't prioritize these projects that serve the most underserved people in our community, the effect is felt wider than just this transit project,” said Veerasingam.
When neighbors come to these shared spaces and meet each other, real change starts, he says. “If you don’t know your neighbor, how are you going to change the space around you?