Workshops put on by Peernet BC in Fort St. James recently gave some local youth a chance to engage directly with community leadership.
There were two days of workshops with the youth and one of those days was spent communicating some of the local youth issues to the community leaders. There were youth and adult-led programs, decision-making exercises, and other engagement activities.
“The young people have the knowledge, it’s just how do we communicate that?” said Iris Yong-Pearson, a community developer with Peernet BC who was helping to facilitate the workshops.
The “experiential education” of the workshops helped to teach the youth the skills they need to effectively communicate and begin to tackle some youth issues.
Both Yong-Pearson and Lydia Luk, the other community developer from Peernet BC, were from Vancouver and in rural B.C. for the first time.
Fort St. James councillors Joan Burdeniuk and Riley Willick were there, and Chief Fred Sam and Nak’azdli Councillor Rosemarie Sam and Nak’azdli Education Administrator Mark Prince were also there.
Youth were disappointed Mayor Rob MacDougall did not make it, but found the workshops productive.
The workshops were organized by Jana Gainor, FIreweed’s youth coordinator and part of Peernet BC’s Learning Initiatives for Rural Networks program.