Make us Part of Your Community: Provide a Way for Us to Get Out and Lend a Hand

Pressing human rights concerns – both locally and abroad – are only going to matter to young people who care about the community they live in and who have had an opportunity to explore social issues they are interested in.  The best way to learn to care about your community is to be involved in it, and the best way to get involved as a young person is to volunteer.

While volunteer opportunities should be a snap to find, that’s easier said than done.  As a young person I’ve had older people not take my willingness to volunteer seriously.  They think I will lack commitment or a good work ethic.  I have a lot to contribute and my skills are valuable, but my age seems to discredit me sometimes.

It’s also a challenge as a young person to get involved with some volunteer opportunities because they either conflict with the unpredictable work schedules we might have to take on at this point in our lives, or because we don’t have the transportation required for a specific activity.  If we try to get involved with local causes and are excluded because we can’t fit the traditional volunteer mold, we slowly lose interest in participating in our community and giving our time to issues we’re interested in.

It’s time for organizations to think outside the box when it comes to involving young people as volunteers for their causes.  Provide one-off volunteer opportunities that don’t require any pre- or post-commitment.  Create projects that volunteers can work at remotely, on their own schedules.  Recognize the valuable skills young people have that will allow them to make a unique contribution to your organization and their community.

By providing avenues for young people to give their time and energy while exploring causes they are interested in, human rights organizations are educating tomorrow’s leaders and fostering habits of being involved.  When the next important cause lands in our laps, our course of action will be informed by a thorough understanding of how to confront social issues and will be backed by solid relationships within the community we’re involved in.

Jen Hoyer is a librarian and musician who currently makes Edmonton her home.  Her volunteering career began at the age of 10 when she secured a position as “environmental engineer” (garbage picker) on the Habitat for Humanity build her father was coordinating.  Since then she has been working hard, for free and occasionally for money, to create the kind of community she thinks other people will enjoy living in.

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.

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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!