Youth Forum

On November 23rd, a collection of youth voices gathered in a zoom-based forum. I had been organizing the forum with Santana Palmer Thomas for about 2-3 weeks prior. Thank you Santana for all of your hard work, learning and collaboration with me to get this forum organized.

I was extremely pleased and proud of the turnout of our youth to the forum. We had a total of 9 youth attend the meeting aged 16-26:

1) Santana Palmer Thomas

2) Diamond Point

3) Phebe Speck

4) Abigail Speck

5) AJ Speck

6) Sylvia Miller

7) Kamryn Sparrow

8) Kassie Charles

9) And myself

Thank you all for your time and feedback regarding issues within our community. Each and everyone of you gave me powerful insight and things to reflect on. The key takeaway for us all, was the ability of our young leaders to come together and to learn from one another. As the only youth councillor candidate in the forum, I had no intentions of leading the dialogue to tell our youth how I feel we ought to improve our community's well-being. The space we created allowed for everyone to feel comfortable to share their current knowledge and thoughts, and was a very mutually beneficial learning experience for us all.

Below are summaries of some of the key areas we discussed:

1) COVID Response & Off-reserve members

We had the opportunity to hear from off-reserve youth regarding the COVID protocol/response by our administration. The conversation led us to understand the lack of communication and opportunity for our off-reserve members to provide their feedback on how Musqueam was responding to the COVID pandemic. While understanding that this is a unique time and our administration is responding in the best way they can, the lack of follow-up between administration and our off-reserve was prominent as we spoke. Our youth suggested more accessibility and opportunity for feedback from off-reserve members through things such as administrative-led zoom meetings to hear how off-reserve Musqueam members felt about the delivery of services/goods relevant to the COVID response (care packages for members who live close to the reserve for example). Our youth provided the suggestion that off-reserve members who are not able to receive deliveries for COVID care-packages should have the opportunity to pick up their care packages at the main checkpoint/entrance of the reserve in the Musqueam Golf Course parking lot. This would provide our members the opportunity to safely and distantly socialize with on-reserve members and loved ones and re-kindle the lost social contact our off reserve members have had during this pandemic.

Additionally, events such as the drive-thru Pumpkin Patch event and the flu shot clinics that were strictly "on-reserve" only did not sit well with our off-reserve members. We as a group felt the nature of the Halloween event being "drive-thru" allowed for safe protocol to ensure we adhered to social distancing requirements to ensure we included our off-reserve members in the event. Social interactions have been few and far in-between for our members, and our displaced off-reserve members are feeling this separation now more than ever. While this shines light only onto a few specific examples of on-reserve only events, we as a collective felt it was necessary for our administration to consult with the community as well as our health experts more diligently to ensure the safety and inclusivity of all our members.

Special shoutout to Diamond Point, who shared many of her thoughts regarding living off-reserve and how she feels our community is responding to the COVID pandemic. As I have lived off reserve myself, I sympathized with our youth who shared their thoughts on this issue. The discussion was emotional, powerful, raw and meaningful for all attendees.

2) Housing

Our youth had the opportunity to ask me questions regarding my thoughts on how to bring our members back home in the face of our housing crisis. As most of our members know, the growing waitlists and lack of land to build on has stalled our ability to ensure our members stay in the community. Santana, being involved with the "Come Home" Design Advisory Group that is helping with the development of housing at the old Musqueam Gym lands, has been extremely prolific in keeping our youth informed about the value of the project as well as it's challenges.

I had a conversation with Nolan Charles last week regarding weighting the benefits and challenges of the housing project. Our on-reserve membership have voiced throughout the process of this project, that they fear the social housing project may bring negative consequences to the community (specifically bringing up our community's drug and alcohol abuse issues). The narrative between on and off reserve members at times, seems to be on thin ice so to speak. Nonetheless, as Nolan and I spoke, we began to realize the tremendous value of bringing our members home beyond it's re-connection of the 200 members who would live there. The 200 people "coming home" from the project would bring the potential to improve on our administration's capacity by bringing educated, professional and knowledgable people closer to home and thus bringing about opportunities to work in Musqueam.

3) Education

Our youth felt our Education department's response to COVID has not been adequate. I want to emphasize that our youth also felt extremely grateful for our Education department and everything they provide for us. However, they seem the department as being understaffed to perform many of the duties and responsibilities we as community members feel we need. Our youth acknowledge the strain the COVID pandemic has put on all our departments, and have voiced their patience in hearing back from emails and requests from various departments. However, many of our youth noted that email exchanges between administration and our members have not been answered in a timely manner, sometimes going completely unanswered.

Moreover, our youth have noted that our Education's monthly living allowance cheques for our full-time studies students has not adequately given enough financial support given the living expenses of the province of BC. $891 dollars per month is not enough to cover our monthly expenses (rent, phone bill, food, transportation) in BC. This is particularly troublesome for some Musqueam households who have numerous people attending post-secondary at the same time. With less income coming in as a household, many of our community members require additional financial supports (whether that be from scholarships or through loans at banks). In addition, our youth are feeling frustrated and stressed with the $90 monthly living allowance for part time students. An alternative solution suggested could be through having a system of living allowance set up where you earn X amount of dollars per course you are enrolled in. For example, full-time (4 courses) receive $891, 3 courses per semester students receive 75% of the full amount ($670), 2 courses per semester receive 50% of the money compared to full-time and so forth. Our youth also feel we are missing opportunities to have tutoring or career mentoring within the community to ensure our youth know what they want to study when they get into post-secondary or trades schooling. Employment and training have a mentorship programs set up for our members, yet the opportunities for mentorship in educational settings have not been offered enough.

4) Youth Engagement & Consultation

Our youth are concerned about the lack of representation of youth within the council table. Myself and Andy Phillips are (from my understanding) the only youth representatives under 29 who have been nominated this upcoming election. Our youth were very understanding of the need to have "balance" at the council table to provide mentorship opportunities for our younger, new candidates to learn with and from the experienced councillors. Moreover, as 46% of our membership is under the age of 29, our youth felt they needed some representation within these decision-making positions, and felt widespread mentorship/internship opportunities would only further progress our youth to be positioned to take up seats in council in the future.

As the youth forum went on, I personally felt the emotions and weight of being a representative of these voices if I were to be elected into council. The forum had allowed me to deepen my understanding of the dynamics of community consultation: co-learning, dialogue, constructive criticism, emotional dynamics of hearing the hard topics of conversation.