Posted by Sarah on November 13, 2008 – 6:14 pm
Next month is the anniversary of Aqsa Parvez’s death, a 16 year old Muslim girl from Toronto who was murdered at the hands of her family.
To commemorate her life, Toronto Life has produced a cover page feature on Aqsa for their December 2008 issue which can be found online here.
In response to this full feature coverage, a group of young Muslim women and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations (UARR) have organized against what they see as the misrepresentation of the issue.
In a press conference held on November 10th, 2008, they noted that this type of media coverage of Aqsa’s death perpetuates “common stereotypes about Muslim and immigrant communities” and diverts attention from the larger context of violence against women. Other groups at the press conference, such as METRAC (Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children), and the CCMW (Canadian Council on Muslim Women) similarly spoke out about the Toronto Life (mis)representation.
I want to say that I was impressed by the articulate and insightful responses the young women speaking gave to the media, because I was. I don’t mean this in the condescending sense where people are often surprised that young people can speak clearly to their experiences and form arguments and opinions. My impression came from the sense that Aqsa’s death and the experiences she had (intergenerational and cultural conflict, and domestic and gendered violence) are hard issues to talk about, especially if you identify with any of her struggles. And many of the women there did. But they didn’t shy away from producing strong statements about why they found Toronto Life’s article both misrepresentative and offensive on many fronts, despite the difficult nature and context surrounding Aqsa’s life and death. For a more comprehensive look at the debate, read the article on Aqsa and take a look at the links below, especially the Facebook group.
Posted by Sarah on July 28, 2008 – 9:05 pm
After attending a youth engagement seminar hosted by United Way, there was a collective decision by the OYN crew that our project was not being true to its youth-led mantra. At the moment the Advisory Committee is the only avenue for people to get involved, and the average age of its members is above 20, while this project is meant to target youth between the ages 13 to 24. We need to formulate a youth engagement strategy as soon as possible. To help us do this, we had a meeting with Ratsamy Pathammavong who works for the Lung Association mobilizing youth around health issues through the YATI (Youth Advocacy Training Institute). She has an amazing energy and a few of her nuggets of wisdom were as follows:
- Be very clear about what are the youth-led areas of this project, and what spaces youth have to make decisions about the project
- Avoid making false promises to youth and others
- Notify people about limitations due to budget, funding requirements, management, proposal constraints…etc
- Concrete suggestions regarding youth voice on the AC include:
o Having youth chair meetings
o Having a 50% youth quorum
o Using “dotmocracy” as a non-verbal way of getting people’s opinions about issues
o 2:1 voting status (youth:adults)
Another resource at our disposal was the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA) publication “Leading by Example: Youth Leadership in Non-Profit Governance” written by Soni Dasmohapatra and Beenash Jafri. We found the most useful parts of this guide to be “CASSA’s Principles of Youth Engagement” and the South Asian Youth Advisory Committee (SAYAC) “Terms of Reference”. The “Principles” are the philosophical backbone of CASSA’s approach to youth engagement within the organization, and the SAYAC “Terms of Reference” are useful to us as a model upon revision of our own Advisory Committee’s Terms of Reference.
Updates will come soon regarding what direction the OYN decides to take after digesting this information. If you have any useful links/resources/suggestions, please leave us comments below or email us at youth-jeunesse@ocasi.org
An awesome resource we have found is a “Youth Friendly” guide by Apathy is Boring which has an awesome section on “How to Make A Meeting Real to Youth” and info on how to make your organization more youth-friendly. It can be found here.
Posted by kfarmaly on June 30, 2008 – 6:55 pm
A history teacher at Cedarbrae Collegiate invited a group of settlement workers to talk about the challenges and issues facing newcomer youth. I was asked to speak on the effects of international migration on daily life, and the audience was keen to hear about how everything that happens in the world affects us, directly or indirectly. Read More »
Posted by chris on June 10, 2008 – 6:02 pm
One of the challenges that often comes up in any new project is determining who gets a seat at the table to define the problem that the project is trying to resolve. Oftentimes it’s people who are established ‘authorities’ on the subject and they’ll tell you what is wrong with some group of people and how to solve the ‘problem’. This has created problems historically as people were researched on, their realities constructed by outsiders, and inappropriate solutions imposed on them. (Not to completely dismiss the notion of experts of course - expertise is invaluable in lots of ways).
Read More »
Posted by admin on June 9, 2008 – 3:58 pm
The OCASI Youth Network
The Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) is excited to announce the creation of the OCASI Youth Network (OYN)! The OYN wants to help newcomer youth get access to the many excellent services in their communities, and make sure they have barrier-free assistance from organizations around the province. We want them to feel comfortable and validated when they walk into agencies, knowing that they will get reliable information and services which respect their particular needs. To do this, we are launching two new exciting initiatives: Services for Youth in Newcomer Communities (SYNC), a research project that will produce a best practices guide for community agencies working with newcomer youth, and a youth-focused information and referral website, providing current and accurate information through technologies like instant messaging, on-demand SMS texting, RSS Feeds, and Social Networking tools.
SYNC
SYNC will be at the forefront of the OYN. Settlement workers and the youth they serve will have the opportunity to get in SYNC by creating a guide on the best practices of working with, and counselling newcomer youth. The guide will be the result of community based research and a one-day consultation led by youth and youth settlement workers. The OYN leaders (most of whom are under 25) have committed significant time and energy to collaboratively identifying and sharing successful existing programs, promising models for service, and the priorities of newcomer youth.
Website for Newcomer Youth
The website will be the heart of the OYN; a place where newcomer youth can go to find answers to and talk about the issues that affect them. Features like a directory of youth-serving organisations, articles relevant to youth, a dynamic discussion forum, an interactive multimedia gallery, and a frequently updated current events/workshop calendar will all be part of the site. The website will also be bilingual, with the French content addressing those issues specific to francophone newcomer youth in addition to those shared by their English-speaking counterparts.
We want youth to get involved! The OCASI Youth Network is a youth-led and youth-centered initiative - a newcomer network for youth, by youth.
To get involved:
Email us at: youth-jeunesse@ocasi.org
Join our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14977497823
For updates about the project, visit our blogs!
www.ocasi.org/youth / www.ocasi.org/jeunesse
