YouthConnect.ca

Nakeisha

Nakeisha from Toronto talks about her summer job working on a radio show as part of the Summer Jobs for Youth Program.

Hi my name is Nakeisha and I live in Toronto and I'm 16.

So, this year I worked for the Upfront Theatre and basically we were on the radio every Tuesday for about an hour. We talked about issues that we wanted.

First we did a play and then afterwards we talked about issues we wanted to talk about - either violence, what we think about the whole cultural thing, basically anything to do with media. We also did Rastafest, we helped with Caribana, made costumes, things like that and that was about it.

The best show that we did was the second week we started work was when we started with the play but we kind of forgot it at home. So, we just improvised and that's how we came up with the ?youth talk'. And from there, we just started belting out things we wanted to say. We talk about guns, drugs, school so that this way they get to know what we think as in why is this bugging us and if they listen to what we have to say, then maybe we can come together and, I guess, make a change, I guess.

Charlotte Arnold

Charlotte Arnold of TV’s Degrassi talks about travelling to Ecuador this year to help build a community kitchen with Free the Children

Degrassi’s parternship with Free the Children last year when we went to Kenya for our first trip and this year we decided to keep it up with Ecuador. And when we went there we were just basically building a community kitchen and like a clean area for them to make food and feed the kids and we worked on a clean water project as well. And while we were there we painted a big huge mural on one of the walls of the kitchen for a little personal touch.

It was the most incredible experience. I mean, I felt non-stop from the second we got there to the second we got home, it was like once in a lifetime experiences that I’ll have to keep pinching myself.

So only were we there seeing how beautiful the country is, getting to find out about their culture, eat guinea pig – yum – but we were also getting a chance to do something that I feel really proud of. And, I got to know my cast so much better while I was there too, so that was a lot of fun.

Craig Kielburger

Free the Children founder Craig Kielburger encourages teenagers to get involved.

Adults say that young people are apathetic. Don’t believe it. When we look at these stats about young people, they volunteer, they take action, they’re active in the community. Young people today are in fact the most connected of any generation ever before. Google, the internet beaming around the world right into their living rooms. The challenge for young people is how do they act on this information. So often we almost feel overwhelmed, the question is I’m only person, what difference can I make?

Well today we answered that question and we need every young person to answer that question loudly and passionately that they can make a huge difference from the local to the global.

First step – find the issue you care about.

Second step – do your research.

Third step – gather a team.

Fourth step – take action.

Whatever your cause is, whatever your passion is, these simple steps are how you create a movement. That’s how Free the Children went from twelve 12 year olds fighting on the issue of child labour to a million youth coast to coast across Canada strong.

Student Nutrition Program

The student nutrition program is in its ninth year. Myself and some students and the family studies teacher just felt that we needed to address issues. Our numbers have increased every year. For the first three or four years, they doubled. We now serve on average, 1,500 to 1,700 students a month.

What I like about volunteering here is that you get to spend time with new and different people. It’s important for teenagers to volunteer because teenagers mostly spend their time hanging out and sometimes but not many, like, don’t help the community.

I keep on doing it because I enjoy it. I work with awesome volunteers and staff. I can see that my school keeps progressing and I can see the students with more energy when they eat their breakfast. I see my school having more spirit and I feel good about it so I keep helping them out and it also makes my day.

I started volunteering here with the intention of finishing the 40 hours that I need for my diploma requirements but after I started volunteering here, the atmosphere was so appealing, the welcoming of students in the morning to feed them was so appealing that every morning it’s a great thing to work here and learn how to cook.

Justin Bieber

How can teens get involved and volunteer?

What I say is definitely you can do anything. Like, you can go online. There are a lot of things you can sign up for through schools, you can sign up for stuff at your school. Anything that really helps others - whether it's picking up your trash and throw it in the garbage rather than throwing it on the ground, whether it is just doing something positive - it just takes one step.

Derek Whitson

2010 Vancouver Paralympic Sledge Hockey Player

All of Canada watching, 60,000 people at the opening ceremonies, 7,000 at each game rooting for Canada. It gives chills, even today, just talking about it, knowing the experience I had. Everyone knows who you are, everyone wants you to play. And they didn’t even see you as disabled. They saw you as an athlete. They saw you as someone who is striving for something and is ready to play for their country.

You can’t be discouraged by having a disability. It’s a whole other world that people don’t even know about and once you find it, there’s so many other people just like you, me and everything else like that – that we have so many opportunities. Just because we’re disabled doesn’t mean we don’t have anything we can’t do. We might have little limits – we can’t skate, we can’t do things but there’s always another way of doing things.

I’ve had challenges all my life. I’ve never looked at it as a challenge. I just looked at it like I wanted to beat it. I wanted to prove people wrong and it’s gotten me everywhere I’ve wanted to go so far. I just don’t think of myself as disabled.

Jesse Cruickshank

Jessi Cruikshank from MTV talks about how easy it is for teens to get involved.

It seems so daunting – you know, those problems happening in Kenya and in India and how do I, sitting at home and…you know, I grew up in B.C., how do I, what do I do to help and I think that it’s all about starting local. What can I do on a daily basis to stop thinking about me all the time and starting thinking about we.

For me growing up, it was as simple as I was really passionate about drama. I was a big theatre nerd and I saw an opportunity in my high school. I saw that there was no special needs drama program and so I started my own lunch hour drama program for the special needs kids in my school and that was my kind of way to give back once a week for an hour at lunch and do something that only helped these special needs students but actually made me feel great.

And, I think at the end of the day, if you find something like that, that something that you love to do that you can do in your community, whether it’s volunteer with senior citizens, with special needs, whether it’s having a bake sale or a fashion show to give money to an organization like Free the Children, little things can make a big impact.

Hedley

Hedley talks to YouthConnect

Don’t think that one extra voice in the crowd doesn’t help out because it takes one voice sometimes to start it. And it takes another voice on top of another voice to keep adding to it.

So, all I can say is, you know what, no matter what you think, even if you don’t think volunteering is cool so to speak, just remember that change happens in your community in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Whether it’s like helping out the food bank, whether it’s like shovelling your neighbour’s driveway who has a bad back, you know, just helping out your community – that sense of compassion about where you live and the people that you live with.

I think a lot of kids get really discouraged by a lack of activity in their neighbourhoods and in their schools. Not every school has a ‘reach out’ program or somewhere they can get involved with and raise money for overseas. But, thanks to 2009, we have internet and we have cell phones and we have so many different social mediums nowadays that makes it so much easier for kids to find out where there are other people like them - in their communities, in there provinces. So that’s a really great place to start and encourage them to say hey look, if you want to do something there are other people out there and you can get connected them and that’s a huge step.

Shafia

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.