Apathetic to a Fault.

Last friday, I was winding up the day at work when a woman intersted in volunteering came in to wait and speak to my boss. I found it clearly annoying because I had a crap load of writing to do before I left, and it being a beautiful friday, I wanted to get out a bit early. But instead of complaining, I sat down with the woman and started having a discussion with her about the community I live in. She works at my old high school with the Learning and Lifeskills class, which is a class for developmentally disabled teens. She applauded my work, Alpha House, for opening up, because it fulfilled a serious gap in service in our community.

So we were chatting away and she started saying that she had always wanted to open a drop-in centre for developmentally handicapped adults that didn't quite meet the criteria to live in a group home, but were seriously unsupported by their community. And I said, what a great idea, have you ever explored the possibility. The woman was very apathetic, we continuted to talk about it for awhile and she only had negative responses. She couldn't find community partners, she couldn't find money, "no landlord would ever rent us space" and on and on. To every one of her negative comments, I had a positive response, i'm a bit of an optimist. I gave her suggestions of funding partners, government grant progrmas that do this sort of work, community organizations that are willing to set something like this up. And she was not willing to consider my suggestions. All she said was, "Oh I had a friend who did that once, and she said the government doesn't give money, so I doubt it would work". I know that there isn't much money right there under your nose, and the government is a little bit difficult to work with. But IF you DON'T even TRY, how will you ever know if you can succeed?

My bigger point is that there are a million people out there like her. I do not believe that if you have an impossible idea, you can't make it work in some form or another. You just have to try. Don't come to me and say that you can't. I don't believe you. If you have a great idea! Act on it. I propose a challenge to people out there: think up an idea that would benefit your community and act on it. It could be something small but just make an effort to realize something you care about. I've done it, it's a great feeling for you and your community. Be flexible, not apathetic. I find it very frustrating to sit and have endless conversations with people I work with on how youth are at risk, and there's nothing we can do to help them get educated or give back to their community. I refuse to believe that, because with enough nurturing and enough belief that there's something there to support them, youth at risk can do a lot more then we have labeled them to be. Adults at risk can be more then they're labels too, as long as we as service providers, politicians and citizens can see past the labels, only then can we begin to make a difference in the lives of those who have been marginalized for so long.

Untitled as of Yet.

So I know I usually rant about things that are close to my current environment, and I do it a lot. So why change now. To start, I've been working at a shelter for pregnant teenagers or teens with infant children and my experiences here plus a topic on a friends blog has inspired todays post. Why are children growing up so fast? Do I think that because now I'm almost adult and it's been so long since I was a kid. I don't think so, when I was 12 we didn't look like britney spears, or have role models like the "Bratz" or things like that. I'm pretty sure that all the dolls and cartoons I watched, if I watched any (we weren't much of a t.v. family). Anyways, I'm starting to sound like my parents but, I do have a point. I work with the end of the line kids. They call it Frontline work, we work with the youth that are past being "at risk", they've done it all. It scares me that my job is necessary, because we should be concentrating on preventative work rather then clean-up, and no one in the government seems to understand this concept.

The other part of my life is working in community development and volunteerism. I work for a provincial organization that links economic, environmental and social development groups together to increase efficiency and communication between sectors. The reason I do this is because I'm putting together some youth initiatives in those above mentioned sectors. Since I've been involved in this, I've seen that the more involved a youth is in their community, the more welcomed they feel and the less at risk they become. The point being, if a community cares enough about their youth to respect them, and give them opportunities to be involved, then youth don't necessairily have to turn to "drugs", "alcohol", "sex" to be listened to, get attention from and/or feel like they have a purpose. I know I'm making some pretty outlandish generalizations, but there's proof out there. To me, there's a link between the overly fast maturation of a child and social problems.

Here's a scenario: you have an 8 year old girl who goes to school and watches t.v. and starts feeling insecure because all the other girls dress like the girls on t.v. and she doesn't. She finds friends who welcome her and they introduce her to some "cool" things like smoking. She grows up with these kids, and they start doing other things, boys start showing her attention, she starts going to parties. One night she's with a boy and she has sex. She's only 13 at this point. Two years later, she's given birth to a child who's dad doesn't have a job and is still only 14 years old, she's tried almost every drug she can get, and probably has an STD from multiple partners. This is a bit extreme, but it's also very real, in fact I've seen it happen. What's missing in this picture? The girl's mom and dad, work too much to notice that their kid is slipping. Or, they want their kids to be happy and give thme every thing they want, but don't every stop to think that maybe what they need is some good mentoring, rather then good clothes.

I worry about the future of our youth. Apathy is growing among teens, and it may not seem important to politicians now, but don't forget. These youth will become the adults of tomorrow, and do you really think that they'll want to put you in a good home, when all you've done is punish them for their situations rather than try and help them? We need to start advocating and teaching kids at a very young age that they have more options in life, that they do have self-worth and that no one, no matter how much they try will ever look like a movie star unless they have thousands and thousands of dollars, and that they are still beautiful. What needs to happen for society to wake up and take some blame?

Future Full of Possibilities

Reading over a friend's blog I had mixed feelings. She's preparing to leave this fall on a non-existent placement due to unfortunate circumstances. I know she'll end up with a placement that is fabulous and such, but I worry. I worry for her, and I worry that I won't find a placement that is just what I'm dreaming of. I've come to realize that if my expectations are too high then I will only be disappointed. Take this summer for example. I expected to find a great job in Toronto, and that the weather would be horrendous like last year and that I would have a great time! So what happened? I couldn't find a job in T.O., had to move home to my parents house, the weather has been beautiful and I wasn't having such a great time. Since I've been home all I've achieved is a great tan, which is now fading, and a crappy job. Until last week that is. I had a slew of rejections, a great job offer in Toronto and I was at a cusp of realizing that my summer was going to suck majorly. Until I finally found a job that suits me. I work at a shelter for pregnant teens doing research work. It's been great so far!

So my expectations were very high until I realized that maybe it was preventing me from getting what I wanted. I lowered my expectations to the point where I'd adjusted to the fact that I was going to be stuck in cobourg working at a Plastics Factory for the rest of the summer, and then boom! Two job offers, visits from friends and the possibility to go to Toronto twice in the next two weeks for meetings and to see some friends! Things are working out. Now I'm working on planning out my year and it's looking pretty good. I'm applying to a study abroad program in Cuba starting in January and then planning on a European Vacation in June, July and then Placement. However.. even though I'm making plans, I don't expect them to be ideal, I only hope that I can learn something from whatever I do next year. I've been disappointed a lot in the past couple of months since schools end, but everytime something falls through; something better turns up. So maybe the bad does get balanced out by the good. So Kate, don't stress, soon I'll be writing about you in my blog and all the adventures that you'll be embarking on shortly!