Tupper GETOUT! Youth Action Team
AKA: Community Team YAT at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary
The Community Team YAT was formed by a group of youth from Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School who saw the need for building trust and linking cultures in their community in response to the recent negative media attention focusing on youth violence. They also saw the unique ability of local youth to draw out the positivity that they know exists among their peers.
The Community Team started with the broad vision of a community celebration that would be a step toward their goal of including and engaging everyone. The group began to build on the many ideas and goals that group members brought to the early meetings: from building community and cross-cultural understanding to awareness of local and global environmental and social issues.
The Community Team's first project was a great success. The team successfully applied for a GetOut! Grant to Youth to host a community building event for neighbourhood youth last fall.
Tupper youth from all groups and of all ages participated in outdoor games and activities as part of the GetOut! Games organized by the Tupper YAT. After the games, many youth approached the team and said they'd like to participate in future projects. The team is planning more projects, and is excited about working with new youth members.
Tupper Youth Action Team: Building Trust and Building Relationships
In their school and in their community
By David Nichols
Photo: Juan G. Solorzano (2005). Building Trust.
Arts event at the Roundhouse,
National Youth Week Celebrations.
As one of the Youth Action Teams being formed as part of the Get Out! Initiative, youth from Tupper Secondary and facilitators from UBC are currently involved in the planning of events to help new Grade 8 students make the transition into high school and a community celebration of the future greening of 23rd Avenue next to their school. The group’s ultimate goal is to use the celebration as a way to build community, cross-cultural understanding and awareness of local and global environmental and social issues.
While facilitators Arti Khanderia, Elise Finnigan and Rebekah Mahaffey all clearly have an affinity for working with youth, they are outsiders attempting to work within the Tupper community. They are the first to recognize the need to build trust between the youth and themselves in order to work well together.
According to Rebekah, trust-building is key to “any kind of relationship.” It is important to create relationships that are “mutually respectful, empathetic, and flexible.” Trust-building is important whether in situations such as this community initiative, personal relationships or in the corporate world. Corporations put a great deal of time and thought into trust-building in fact because they know, as Rebekah says, “It is the only way anything ever gets done!”
This trust-building exercise occurred at Pacific Spirit Park near UBC towards the end of spring break, with three girls from Tupper participating in a treasure-hunt designed by the facilitators. While attendance thus far at in-school meetings has varied widely, these three are among the dedicated core. While the girls’ comfort level may have decreased with the presence of an outsider (myself), the facilitators are quick to re-establish rapport—asking the girls about their spring break and being candid about the short-comings of their treasure-hunt planning.
As with the community celebration in the works, being flawless is not the point here. The activity is meant to build relationships and strong relationships can be formed through sharing imperfections and dealing with problems together. Once involved in the hunt itself, talk turns quickly to celebration planning, and ideas for the preliminary stage of its development are shared equally. Discussion occurs, progress is made in the midst of trust-building, in the middle of the forest.
Of course, the idea for this celebration was not arbitrary, but rather in response to a need. While claims that the recent beating death of Jomar Lanot was racially motivated have been roundly denied, the fact that they still exist creates a stigma. A community celebration that links cultures and fosters community has the potential to both healing any rifts that may have grown in wake of the incident and publicizing the abundant positivity of Tupper’s youth, something that gets left out when the media latches onto a story such as that of Jomar.
These youth believe that Tupper is a harmonious community and has the potential to be even more so, and this celebration shows their refusal to be stigmatized by the tragic event. In a sense, the celebration acts as a much larger trust-building activity for a community in recovery.
While the relationships built between the facilitators and the youth have thus far been successful, Rebekah believes that one thing the neighbourhood around Tupper has been lacking are strong connections between different groups of local youth. As with many programs under the Get Out! Banner, this initiative is attempting to address the needs of a very diverse constituency of youth. And the trouble of getting a Grade 8 and a Grade 12 student to see eye to eye is evident. This concern could be extended to addressing the needs of the less academically inclined and youth who might be considered “at risk.”
While the input of the girls who attended the treasure-hunt is highly valued, they likely have few issues with adults and other authority figures. The upcoming challenge for the Tupper Youth Action Team will be building trust with more youth who are already disengaged. The planned community celebration will be a step in the direction of including and engaging everyone.
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