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I went to "Alberta's Children's Forum" on October 5 & 6 (thanks pytor) and it was interesting. I very quickly ran out of the SR2000 postcards! The intent of the conference was good, but the process and attitudes of some of the adults didn't really impress me. I think that there should have been more young people present (a great thing you'll never have to worry about at a Students Commission conference...). I was in the substance abuse discussions and I found myself being muted or misinterpreted on several occassions and there were very few young people in the discussion compared to the plentiful adults. They had a set form and process that we had to go through to reach our "recommendation", and it limited various already broad issues and tried to simplify them into one sentence. This created confusion and ignored important aspects of already complex issues, we became entangled in bureaucracy and spent more time arguing about the wording of a sentence then discussing and actually coming up with ideas or solutions for these problems. Instead of trying to sum an issue up in one sentence, we could have been taking the approach "what can I do to solve this problem?" or "who can help me do this?" or "how will I do this?". The "suits" had a very different view of me during the 2 days of the conference until the end of the last day, after I had stood onstage behind the podium in front of them all and read the substance abuse group's recommendations. After my speech they all talked to me and acknowleged my presence, apparently I was different then. At the end I felt like we only had words to show that it had happened, no action. I didn't feel like a difference had been made (perhaps due to my own faults...). I'm glad I went, I met alot of really intelligent, cool, caring people, re-awakened to alot of things, made a difference with some people, and learned things that they won't ever teach in school. Perhaps that's why gathering youth from all kinds of backgrounds and from all over the country and sticking them together for a week to discuss and do something about child poverty is such a great idea. Young people (and many not-so-young people) are not necessarily used to doing things in a set "this is the way it should be done" fashion, we aren't afraid to go in a different direction, to try something different. We look at what we CAN do, and when that many creative, intelligent minds have that freedom and that motivation, then there will be innovation, progress, and social change. I'm sure we all know the sense of acomplishment we've felt at the end of an SR2000 conference, while still knowing that it is just the beginning... Comment on a "You Said It" article or write your own in the Discussion Forum
 
tgmag@tgmag.ca
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