Diverse youth advisory council

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The Diverse Youth Advisory Council (DYAC) is a community group that acts as advocate to promote greater understanding, inclusion and support of the diverse communities, which define Toronto. The DYAC works to provide youth with political awareness, employment readiness and a sense of self and community. The primary goal of the DYAC is to empower youth, 14-25, with the necessary tools to succeed in a recreational and professional setting. The DYAC seeks to acknowledge youth from particular groups including Women, Aboriginal communities, Youth with Disabilities, Multicultural Communities and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered youth.

The DYAC has developed and collaborated on the following events: DEFY 2006 “Challenge Yourself”, Elimination of Racism and Discrimination, Latino Conference, Stop the Violence Walk and Toured Botswana youth around Toronto

The DYAC is currently working towards the development and implementation of: DEFY 2007, 2008 and 2009 (with the support of the Youth Challenge Fund[1] and the Neighbourhood Centre); being an MC or public speaking; learning how to host a meeting; building team work skills; mediation skills; networking skills; recreation opportunities and special event planning.

DEFY 2006 “Challenge Yourself”

In February 2006, the DYAC in collaboration with the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation, Access and Diversity Unit, hosted the first annual DEFY 2006 “Challenge Yourself”. This event focused on the empowerment of our city’s youth and acted as a medium to foster individual and community growth. The theme of this full-day workshop in non-traditional recreation activities was an opportunity for youth to “challenge themselves.” Youth came away from this experience with the recognition of their individual skills and talents and an increased awareness of the role they play in their community and their city. The event consisted of active youth-led workshops and demonstrations as well as a large information fair by youth service providers.

Feedback from participants indicated that: • Approximately 80 youth who actually came out and participated. • More than 85% of DEFY 2006 participants indicated that they had tried at least one activity that they had never had the opportunity to experience before; and majority of them showed a strong interest in taking part in non-traditional activities on a regular basis. • More than 90% of the respondents said that they would attend DEFY 2007 if given the opportunity • More than 60% of the participants stated that they would like to see an increase of programs and services that expands and provides opportunity for youth in part-time employment. • Furthermore, 88% of youth were interested in seeing more programming for diverse communities including women, the aboriginal community, people with disabilities, diverse cultural groups and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual and two-spirited persons.

DEFY 2007 “Challenge Yourself”

Following the positive response generated by DEFY 2006 “Challenge Yourself”, the DYAC, felt it was necessary to continue the newly developed project. In order to sustain the process and implementation of DEFY 2007; a grant application was made to the Youth Challenge Fund to support the project for 3 years. The application was successful with a significant amount of money given to the DYAC to execute the project.

The project will focus on the 13 priority neighbourhoods over the course of the next three years. DEFY 2007 will engage youth from Crescent Town, Victoria Village/Flemingdon Park, Steeles-L’Amoureaux, Jane-Finch and Kingston-Galloway neighbourhoods.

There are three phases in the development of DEFY 2007:

Phase I – Outreach Members of the DYAC will host a “strengths search” workshop in each neighbourhood, looking for potential young leaders interested in learning how to become workshop facilitation trainers. Members of the DYAC will also be discussing how youth can become more proactive to get more recreation and employment opportunities for youth in their local communities. Youth will create a mural representative of their community which will be displayed at the event.

Phase II – Training of Trainers The DYAC will recruit two young leaders (one female and one male) from each neighbourhood to train as trainers. These youth will receive training from a reputable trainer on workshop facilitation. The youth will be recognized with a certificate of facilitation competence. The expectation of the DYAC is for these two youth to then train other youth in their community on workshop facilitation.

Phase III – Training of Facilitators 2 groups of youth from each neighbourhood will have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills/talents (eg. drumming, graphic design) through a workshop which they will host at DEFY 2007. These 2 groups will have been trained by the youth trainers in phase II.

Phase IV – The day of DEFY 2007 10 workshops will be facilitated by youth from the five priority neighbouhoods (phase III). These workshops will be evaluated for effective facilitation. One group will be selected based on their demonstrated facilitation skills, and offered the opportunity to run their workshop at a location in the City of Toronto (within their neighbourhood) for a period of 9 weeks.

Note: Should the other groups demonstrate equally good facilitation skills or have a deep interest in running their workshops in their community, the DYAC will commit to searching out potential grants and assist the groups in applying for funding to support their pilot project.

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