“It was a little rough,” he says. “You always had to make sure that you had a couple of friends with you. You never go anywhere by yourself.”

Larbi, who moved to Chalkfarm when he was four, said he was slashed during an altercation at age eight or nine, robbed three or four times during his high school years, and was stabbed multiple times during an attempted robbery at age 20. “(My) close friends got shot, stabbed, kidnapped,” he said. “Three friends (were) murdered.”

Larbi, now 28 and still a Chalkfarm resident, works with neighbourhood children and youth in the hopes that they won’t go through what he endured in the area.

Larbi is the youth co-ordinator at Spider’s Web Youth Empowerment Centre, which offers a range of after-school programs for young people aged six to late teens at 160 Chalkfarm, one of four residential highrises that make up the Chalkfarm complex, located northwest of Jane Street and Wilson Avenue.

Larbi describes the centre as a “safe haven” where children and youth can “be themselves and not be ostracized.” The centre, which has been operating for the past nine years, provides homework help, healthy snacks, physical activities, field trips, computer access, and mentorship. It is run by Believe to Achieve, an organization founded by retired Canadian champion boxer Spider Jones.

“We empower young people to deal with challenges. We teach them life skills. We teach them how to take responsibility,” Jones said. “This is not a glorified babysitting service. These children learn discipline here. We help them with their homework. We help strengthen their minds so that the lure of the streets will never get them.”