Street Sense
YouthScape Go Grants are different from many other youth granting
programs in Calgary because they engage ‘marginalized’ youth.
Through these projects, YouthScape Calgary is taking the lead to
work with some of the most ‘marginalized’ of all: street-involved
young people.
This group poses higher funding risks due to their lack of stability
and high levels of transience, but Go Grant projects also provide
unique learning opportunities, and the chance to make significant
impacts in young people’s lives!
Examples of YouthScape Calgary projects:
:
1. A street-involved youth wanted to set up a bike-borrowing program at a
youth shelter, as a way to keep young people out of correctional facilities.
This was aimed at addressing the fact that many young people are incarcerated
because they cannot pay their fines for riding public transit without a ticket.
2. A young person worked to help develop communication skills among
her peers and build youth-adult partnerships to support homeless youth.
3. A group of young people participated in a program called Bounce Back,
in which they made a music video showing the reality of living on the streets
of Calgary. They worked with the City of Calgary, the Boys and Girls Club of
Calgary, and a team of professional hip-hop artists. The video was shown at
Live Styles, an urban arts festival in Calgary, with more than 700 hundred
people attending. |
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Some of what we learned:
Through these projects, we are gaining valuable knowledge and discovering
new strategies for working with street-involved youth. Here is some of what
we’ve learned:
- ‘Engage to grant versus grant to engage’.The recruitment process requires a much more active approach. Advertisement
must go further than word of mouth, posters, and flyers, to reach communities
that are systemically ‘excluded’. To support the youth application process, our
active recruiting strategies include approaching young people on public transit,
involving other youth-serving organizations (e.g. youth shelters), and building
relationships through programs like Bounce Back.
- Redefine ‘success’. It can be challenging and disappointing to define ‘success’ when engaging street-involved youth. Often, there will be meetings with ‘no shows’ or
interruptions when a conversation triggers a young person’s memory.
Remember that the journey is more important than big numbers and major
transformations. For us, just having a few youth participate in our meetings
became a huge success.
- Release funds gradually as milestones are achieved.We are learning that funds should be released gradually, after losing contact
with a grantee before he completed his project. Now, we work with grantees to
break their projects down into smaller steps or goals, and tie payments to the
achievement of each of those milestones.
- Increase follow-up and ongoing support.
Street-involved young people have significant challenges that impact their ability
to follow through on their commitments without support. It is essential to
provide significant support to be able to cultivate and implement their ideas.
Sometimes help goes far beyond project support, and extends to helping youth
meet basic needs, overcome addictions, develop life skills, and manage their
fears and emotions. For example, one of our grantees disappeared for a month
and was forced to use grant money to support herself during a crisis. Through
incidents like this, we are learning to increase the frequency and quality of
contact with our grantees and the agencies that support them.
- Finally, take risks! No granting program focusing on ‘marginalized’ young people will be
successful unless there is a built-in tolerance for risk — this needs to be
intentionally cultivated.
We continue to struggle with the question of whether it is reasonable to expect
that these young people, whose lives are fairly chaotic and unstable, will be
able to focus on projects and carry through with their commitments.
We have seen, however, that the engagement process can build trust, skills
and confidence, and that youth-driven projects can play an important role in
helping street-involved young people create pathways to healing and stability.
***
“Bounce Back
has helped me to
overcome my own
obstacles.”
— Youth participant,
Bounce Back
“I got to see the inspiration in the youth, which also
inspired me.”
— Artist Working wth Street-Involved Youth, Bounce Back
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