I grew up in a rural community in Alberta and upon feeling like I needed to escape that world to spread my wings, I experienced major culture shock when I moved to the city. The culture shock surrounded a number of things but mostly I was shocked by the cultural diversity in the city but also the wealth of opportunity for getting involved as a youth to affect social change. While there may have been a few opportunities to get involved in my rural hometown, you had to search for them and as a farmer’s daughter, I never had much of a chance to engage with them. Time slopping the pigs or haying the fields preoccupied the majority of my time away from school. My goal when I left my community was to make a difference – I just never saw the opportunity to do that there and I left in order to pursue my desire to have an impact on the world.
I thought this isolation of opportunities for engagement for rural youth would have dissipated by now but alas over the past couple years of engaging with youth in rural communities through my work at the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights, I am still saddened to hear that youth are frustrated with the lack of opportunities as well as openness to the engagement of youth in the community. One of the things often not realized is that this lack of opportunitt to engage in positive activities in rural communities, opens the doors to engagement in the negative including drugs. I was shocked last summer when we had a roundtable of rural youth at the Global Youth Assembly to talk about their challenges of engagement when the youth stated:
Youth that have a unique identity different from the average feel really confined. Youth that have dreams of having an impact or taking social action feel marginalized. They dream of just getting out as soon as they can rather than remaining connected to the community.
This resonated with me as it sounded like me… a number of years ago. The youth conveyed a sense of frustration at living in a ‘closed community with little opportunity for innovative ideas and projects’. Some indicated that they had given up trying to engage in their communities feeling that they had hit numerous road blocks and a genuine disinterest in the youth voice. We heard that there was a need for positive spaces for youth to come together and to find a way to have their voices heard.
We have jumped to the call to start bringing these rural youth together both at the local level in their community but also at a provincial level. We’ll be working to create a rural youth network as well as foster youth dialogues, leadership forums and activities in communities throughout the province. Keep an eye open for future activities!
Starting on April 10th, we will be bringing together 35 youth from Lethbridge and surrounding areas (including Taber, Magrath and more) to explore human rights issues as well as focus on creating a plan for further youth engagement and action in the area. The leadership day in April is a starting point for ensuring the youth of the area have first hand engagement and direction of a future Rural Youth Forum (RYF) to be held in Lethbridge in the fall of 2010. These events are being planned with partner organizations such as the Aboriginal Youth Council of Lethbridge, Lethbridge Family Services, GALA and Amnesty International – amazing groups who are seeking to advance and promote human rights in this area of the province.
The RYF in October will gather approximately 150 – 200 youth aged 16 to 28 to participate in a full day of activities that are meant to bring a diverse group of youth together, generate awareness and discussion about local human rights issues, and provide tools and resources for rural youth to get engaged in their communities in positive ways. The RYF Lethbridge is part of a series of RYFs planned throughout Alberta to ultimately develop a rural youth network, instill pride in rural cultures and communities, bring the rural youth voice to the decision-making table, and bridge the urban-rural divide.
If you or any youth you know would like to participate in this leadership day on April 19th – please contact Lorinda Peel at lorinda@jhcentre.org or register directly online Lethbridge April 10 Poster. Space is limited, so please apply as soon as possible! It will be a full day of fun and motivation – we are looking forward to this being the start of something powerful!
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