One of the most memorable stories in the play, written by Emma Beltran, was that of a Mexican student activist who was forced to flee Mexico after being tortured in detention, refusing to give up the names of her “comrades” in action.  The rest were pieces by Martha Kuwee Kumsa, Sheng Xue, and Goran Simic, all members of PEN Canada’s “Writers in Exile” program.

I was really impressed by the this play was outreached towards newcomer youth. The invitation specified that youth were especially welcome to attend the play and the presentation included a fun reading by a writer from PEN Canada’s “Writers in Exile” program.  No One Is Illegal hosted a workshop as well. The theatre was full of youth on the day we attended, and the interactive pieces seemed to be a good way to explore a lot of issues raised in the play, like that of non-status migrants and their struggles.

I feel that a lot of a newcomer youth don’t get the chance to explore the bumpy road of (im)migration and settlement in Canada. Their struggle with this process is not something that is talked about in schools, is not something that is represented in the curriculum and is not something they are encouraged to write about in creative writing classes.  The TAXI Project is a good example for younger people that creative outlets like playwriting can be used to tell their stories.

While the initial run of the play is over, the TAXI Project will be shown in public schools starting September, hopefully reaching out to and inspiring more youth in the process.

Our Schools, Our Communities: a vital conversation on Equity, Inclusion, Social Justice
and the possibilities for change - A forum hosted by the Ontario Inclusion Learning Network (OILN), held at the Harbourfront Community Centre.

This forum had speakers ranging from institutions like the TDSB (Lloyd McKell) to advocacy groups like the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. One major absence were the youth themselves - out of four speakers, only one was a recent high school graduate. This was a problem because the forum was mainly concerned with the challenges that young students face today, and they weren’t present to talk about their own experiences.

Youth representation and involvement is a major issue for this project. The problems the organizer had in getting a youth to speak at Our Schools, Our Communities raised a few questions for me: What challenges will we have when recruiting youth to particpate in this project? What other spaces can we outreach to, to find these immigrant and refugee youth? Will youth respond differently to the project based on where they hear about it from (schools versus Facebook)? Will their input be used in a meaningful way? Precisely because this is such a challenging part of the project, I think answering these questions is important to make sure the project really is youth-led.

For more information on the forum itself, visit http://www.oiln.ca/news/