My name is Shafia and I’m 17 and I work at the Mural Roots and I live in Scarborough . We basically paint a mural so that people can see it and we’re going to put it at the back of Scarborough Village and it’s basically supposed to just bring the community together. We come up with the design, then we show it to the community and get their feedback on it, edit it and then we get to paint it large scale and put it up.

The murals are about enjoying the arts and the culture with the scientific aspect and it’s supposed to let the community know about what’s going on and bring them together to a focal point.

At the beginning of the project we were told to be aware that police will come around and think we’re just tagging things, so just to be ready for that and so we had to be really careful. Now that we’re a bit safer, but, I guess I hope that our mural doesn’t get tagged and it kind of shows mostly the seniors here that all youth aren’t going to go around graffiting things and some of them just want to make good art without vandalizing.

I love art because you get to express yourself and you get to show what you feel and what you’re thinking with everyone else too. Usually, in the summer I just slack off and I just sleep in and that was it and that was my life, all boring and nothing to do. Now I’m going to grade 12, so I really need to earn some money, so this was like getting to do what you love. It’s awesome.