Walk4Justice will be passing through Edmonton on July 10th and there are community organizations looking to welcome and support the walkers. Continue to watch this space for updates on how you can get involved.

Dreamspeakers Film Festival is starting today and will run until June 1oth. The Film Festival features the work of Aboriginal filmmakers, actors and artists coming together to celebrate Aboriginal art, heritage and culture. The film line up looks amazing and the events look like a lot of fun. If you have time this week, be sure to check out the Dreamspeakers Film Festival!

Creating Hope Society is selling Indian Tacos as part of their fundraising initiative for National Aboriginal Day. This sale will take place on June 18, 2010 from noon-2:00 p.m. You can get them at Creating Hope Society at Suite 200, 12946-97 St. You can also call ahead for orders-to-go at (780) 477-7961.

Since I always seem to feature a video on Wednesday, here’s a Conway K/Red Power Squad video for their single “Emcee”. Red Power Squad is a hip-hop crew that helps inner-city youth through the power of music and hip-hop. We’ve worked with them a few times over the years, usually for the Global Youth Assembly.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm01TPVAQhg]

On the other hand, MediaCamp, in my experience, went the other way. It had a smooth beginning but then dissolved into organized chaos because of the “unconference” style. Unconference, by the way, refers to the participants determining the program for the day by writing it down on cards then announcing them. Organizers then slot the sessions into a giant graph taped onto the wall.

The concept was interesting but I think it only works for small audiences. Under 100 people, this would have allowed for tight discussions (especially given the time limit of all the sessions to roughly half an hour!) on topics that were definitely interesting and could have been a great networking session. The event clocked in at over 200 people, which meant that the more popular sessions were three people deep in a circle (and for reasons I fail to understand, I’m not sure why organizers refused to allow the group to break into two or even three groups). With this many people, the discussion was hard to hear and even more difficult to participate.

But technical difficulties aside, both events apparently shared a sentiment in common with similar take-home messages: you need to have real relationships with people in order to gain buy-in.

Interpersonal Communications: Still There

In other words, media, whether it is social or traditional, requires interpersonal communications in order to be successful. This isn’t a world-shaking revelation but it does enforce the power of social media (which as all social media enthusiasts proclaim, is not a fad!) as an arbiter of democracy. For example, since the political system apparently no longer responds to the democratic concerns of its citizens, citizens have found another way to engage. They do it by talking to each other, discussing the issues, connecting with politicians in a more direct manner. I think any politician would be forced to respond if their Twitter accounts suddenly received thousands of angry tweets about an issue. Suddenly, the playing field is leveled.

Like all things in life, interpersonal communications is key to breaking down barriers, getting things done and learning new ideas from one another. If anything, that’s what we learned on Saturday.

If you want to see what MediaCamp accomplished, head over to twitter and use the hashtag “#yegmediacamp” to see all the updates. There was a LOT of discussion and a lot of it was great. Some of it was not. If you were there, let us know what you thought about MediaCamp or the Storytelling Event!

The fundraiser was intimate and the afternoon was passed in discussion about the subject itself. Rabia and Maigan expressed their surprise and pleasure at their own journeys of self-discovery as they made this documentary. The documentary isn’t done yet but it sounds like Jews and Muslims in Edmonton have far more in common with each other than the differences would suggest. Curtis, the filmmaker, also said that he didn’t have a background in understanding the Jewish & Muslim conflict but working on this documentary has engaged his interest, both in the subject matter and learning more to take action.

This Documentary project is an excellent example of youth leaders engaged in subjects near and dear to their hearts and coming out with a better understanding, not just of the issues, but also of themselves. I don’t think it can ever be understated just how invaluable self-discovery is in human rights activism. The popular perception of human rights activism for youth focuses on tackling the issues: homelessness, poverty, climate change, etc. Don’t get me wrong–these issues are of absolute priority for different people but there are days when we forget that personal development is important too.

Without personal development, the sincerity of the passionate that drives our work rings hollow. Self-reflection and critical evaluations are crucial to understanding our own motives, fears and hopes and why we do the work that we do. So it is always encouraging when youth leaders set out to do a project to create positive change the world and ends up finding a positive change in themselves.

Over the weekend, Renee headed down to Lethbridge to lead the Rural Youth Leadership Day with Lorinda, our coordinator extraordinaire. Renee came back exhausted but full of exuberance and pleasure over how engaged and energetic the youth leaders were for the work. We are pleased that our first foray towards building rural youth connections with the overall Ignite Change Now! Program is off to a running success. We hope to build more connections with organizations in southern Alberta for the larger Youth Forum that is coming this fall.

For more coverage of this event, read this awesome article from the Lethbridge Herald. We’ve also uploaded a few images from this past weekend.

[slideshow]

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 10^th, 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 19^th – 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!

The project they’re currently working on is called the Street Speaks Mural.

Edmonton’s city hall is home to a new art project called Street Speak. It’s a collection of nine paintings that represent the voices of the homeless in words, doodles, pictures and symbols. — CBC

Bolotwa, South Africa by Randy OHC

On Sunday February 07, we had our second Human Rights Cafe Dialogue at Three Bananas. We had a fairly good turn out and an even better discussion. The cafe was really supposed to be a discussion of the book Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo but alas, only 2 people really got more than 2/3rds of the book so the discussion was more on aid/development politics. However, the book did start the party and it was a good party!

For the most part, I think most of the participants agreed that Dambisa Moyo’s premise–that bilateral/multilateral developmental aid (aid that is provided to governments, usually through the World Bank or the IMF) is harmful. This system of developmental aid, basically enables corrupt governments to pocket most of the aid with less than something like 25% of it reaching its citizens.

We also had a really great discussion along the lines of holistic country-building, taking into the need for human dignity when working with communities on the ground yet looking beyond the immediate needs and small geographical areas towards building the entire nation, which requires a degree of sacrifice on the grassroots level (without forgetting that the poorest of the poor exist still). We also had a long discussion about meeting the Social, Cultural and Political pillars, not just the Economic one, as necessities in building a country. We also had a good discussion on various initiatives that have been tried (the value of micro-lending, for example) and whether or not most aid development programs are actually helpful or just charity in disguise (charity, which gives “hand outs instead of a hand up”, as one participant so eloquently put it).

I think the group agreed that charity is not the way to go since it does very little to foster sustainable community development. There is also an inherent harm to good intentions such as the clothing you donate to Value Village. This clothing, if it does not sell in Canada or wherever it originates, gets shipped to various African countries and are essentially resold to merchants who then sell it to the public for a cost. This has a negative impact on the community because these donated clothes now takes away the livelihoods of clothiers and tailors.

We also discussed extensively the need for foreign investment and foreign capital in African markets to jump-start the economy and to foster competitive innovation. There was also an idea floating around that African countries should have their own trading blocs (similar to ASEAN or NAFTA or even the EU in its original form).

Unfortunately, the discussion revolving around development in Africa takes a lot longer than 2 hours (and really, a lifetime) but Dead Aid was a good conversation starter. When I’m done reading the book, I’ll be doing a review of it and adding a few thoughts to it as well.
Next Human Rights Cafe: March 7th, same place, same time. Check out the Events page for more details.

Flickr photo by xb3

Don’t forget there’s a Human Rights Cafe this Sunday at Three Bananas Cafe. We’re reading Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo (but you need not have read this book to still come for the discussion!) for February 7th because it’s International Development Week. Dead Aid has been quite controversial in the development arena since it tackles one of the hardest issues in development–aid for developing countries. Dambisa Moyo takes a brave stance in this book by challenging the status quo and making us question whether or not foreign aid actually helps or hinders development in Africa.

Has anyone read the book? What are your thoughts on the issue?

Speaking of International Development Week–the University of Alberta is doing their International Week this week with tons of activities going on. The JHC and the Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association presented yesterday on February 2nd regarding the Apology made to Aboriginal peoples of Canada for the horror that were residential schools. International Week has put up a short review and podcast of the presentation so go check it out!