YOUTH
ENGAGEMENT
Youth Initiatives
In order to develop youth, they must be engaged. Although it seems simple enough, how does one go about this? What is the best approach for involving youth that may be disconnected form their communities due to a variety of reasons?
African Descent Youth Engagement Society (ADYES) was created by the African descent Society BC to provide youth of African Descent with a platform to engage in responsible, challenging actions to create positive change. This means involving youth in planning and making decisions that affect themselves and that of their community. The Society is open to all youth aged 15-24 in Vancouver, BC.
The ADYES uses a grass-roots, youth-guided, and strengths-oriented approach model to engage and develop “high risk” youth – marginalized youth who face a multitude of life challenges. ADYES is contextualized within the prevalence of poverty and homelessness, racism and discrimination, stigma and mental health issues, school dropout and abusive/addictive behaviors, social exclusion and/or compromised developmental outcomes among Youth of African Descent.
ADYES is currently collaborating with a number of organizations in Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada. Most importantly, ADYES is a youth-driven and youth-oriented organization, guided by a diverse group of African Descent talented youth leaders.
On forming this organization, the key questions being addressed include:
How can we best engage youth of the African Descent in Vancouver BC and Canada?
How can we become more effective in facilitating the optimal development of youth of African Descent?
How can we better support youth of African Descent to become more engaged, successful citizens in our community for social, cultural, political and economic change?
Youth Engagement Forum Poster
The African Descent Youth Engagement Society has hosted events geared toward issues of the day
Project Goal
Engaging youth of African Descent in positive actions for social, political and economic change.
Project Objectives
Identity: To engage youth in a meaningful understanding of the history of the first African Descent settlers in British Columbia through research, writing and public presentations as well as engaging in heritage fair activities. In addition to understanding their heritage and culture, advocating for integrating the African Descent history curriculum in the school system to address anti-racism or institutionalized racism and instill real policy change in schools.
Self-esteem & Talent: To provide avenues for leadership development skills and talents such as the Young African Parliament, Youth Summit Forum, African Descent History Month, Sports, Music, Dance, Drama, Performing art, Creative writing and Acting.
Capacity building: To promote development and strengthening of skills, process and resources among Youth of African Descent needed to advocate issues affecting them and in their respective communities.
Skills & Networking: To connect or align Youth of African Descent with employment and job opportunities that match their skill set and qualifications through community connection and partnering with recruiting agencies.
Activities
The African Descent Society has hosted a series of workshops to help youth learn and develop their skills in a variety of areas, listed below. Within those areas, youth have had the opportunity to learn and engage in some exciting activities with their peers. This opens the door for the opportunity to network and be mentored by experts in their industries.
Organizations: Held to help youth learn about organizational fundamentals, some of the topics covered were non-profit fundamentals, management, leadership and board governance.
Marketing: Topics include promotional strategies, learning the social media channels and marketing strategies.
Music and the Industry: Youth had the opportunity to learn on a variety of topics from leaders in their industry. Topics included drum circles, their history and their benefits; fundamentals of live performances including stage presence, communicating and conducting live rehearsals; audio and visual recording and; storytelling, which included the African-Canadian legacy.
Expected Results
Identity: Engage youth in African Descent activities including research and presentations of African Descent history such as the life and contributions of early African Descent settlers to Canadian prosperity with the intent to expand the narrative beyond slavery and poverty.
Self-esteem & talent: Youth define the desired outcome of the project and start planning all the necessary steps by working backwards from the goal or outcome through practical engagement tools such as brain-storming by working in groups and/or use of sticky wall notes as they generate action steps to discuss their strategic plans and rearrange steps if necessary.
Capacity building: Work with youth to organize, plan, engage and produce events such as cultural and heritage fair activities, African Youth Festival, African Descent Youth Summit Forum, African Descent History Month and other activities that empower them in advocating issues that affect them.
Skills & Networking: ADYES collaborates with established agencies in the business development sector and with key institutional partners to implement effective strategies and programming that promote business startups and job creation with African Descent communities, while consulting with Indigenous peoples to avoid exploitation and to draw from best practices.The
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