"I think a lot of them, when they come to our program, because we create that safe environment for their after school, it makes a lot of sense that they come and they want to unload all this stuff."

"Why hip-hop? Hip-hop is it right now! I don’t know if you realize, everything out there, whether it be video, audio, print media, ads in magazines – the dancing; hip-hop is the craze right now. Why not use that as a way to engage these kids positively, because we know they love it."

"One of the things that I thought was really fun was um, one of the tasks was to compare the garbage collection system in Montreal and Cairo - which would be a lot of fun if you had a clue where Cairo was. It's that type of thing that doesn't seem to translate into our particular environment. But it's a great idea on paper."

"I think it's really clear that there's a disconnect between what we do in school and what the kids experience in life, and if they're going to take us seriously we have to make it more real for them and it has to have some application outside our doors."

"I don't want to be a person who talks about, “Oh, poor me with white privilege”, and then put myself in a place where people should feel bad for me, or nurture me. I just want to say it as a matter of fact, this is what it is, and I like to keep on my toes."