Words from the WICkids
"A welcoming and inclusive community is a diverse group of people who, by being open minded, strive to create a safe, accepting and positive environment where everyone belongs."
"The WIC Youth Team's guiding principles are: Realizing that understanding breaks barriers; Encouraging awareness; Understanding that we can inspire by demonstrating acceptance and cooperation; and we are influential by being true to ourselves.
"The WIC Youth Team is here because Surrey is a rough draft; we need to work on it more. Our mission is to raise awareness and promote diversity in our community through 'sharing the love' and encouraging the future generation to be more accepting."
"Our vision is a community of inclusive, accepting and understanding citizens. We want Surrey to initiate a chain reaction in other communities and the world in the long run."
WIC Youth Team (Wickids!)
WIC Youth Team with guest Ross MacDonald from the City of Surrey – Outreach and Support Services
June 23, 2010
Project Overview
The Welcoming and Inclusive Communities Youth Team (WIC Youth Team) is a project to engage high-school aged youth to develop and facilitate afterschool workshop activities to engage elementary school aged children grades 4-7 in conversations and dialogue regarding what makes a community welcoming and inclusive. Through this process the children will be mentored by youth, have the opportunity to express themselves and their experiences, learn about other cultures and develop a deeper understanding of their community. A key component of this project is the development of activities by youth for children.
The WIC Youth Team project is proceeding in three phases:
Phase 1: Recruitment and training
Recruitment and building cultural competency, understanding of welcoming and inclusive communities, facilitation skills and purpose of project
Phase 2: Development of after-school workshop activities, and testing out of activities.
Phase 3: Implementation
Implementation of afterschool project into 3 civic facilities
Location 1 : Cloverdale Youth Centre - Start Date October 21, 2010
Cloverdale is often an overlooked area of the City of Surrey when it comes to social programming, as a result children have less opportunity to take part in programs of this nature. The Cloverdale Youth Centre provides a unique opportunity to engage middle-years children from three different Elementary Schools in the program at the same time.
Location 2 : Newton Recreation Centre - Start Date October 26, 2010
Newton is a high needs community with a large immigrant and refugee population.
Location 3 : North Surrey Recreation Centre. - Start Date November 2, 2010
North Surrey is a high needs community with a large immigrant and refugee population.
Phase 1 is drawing to a close, and project staff are guiding the youth into phase two, developing the after-school workshop.
The WIC Youth Team is comprised of 15 youth from diverse background from across Surrey. Special emphasis was put on recruiting youth with a diversity of life experience. A project flyer was created and distributed through networks of youth-serving cultural and service organizations, the City of Surrey’s volunteer database, and communications directly to youth. Interested youth were asked to submit an application answering the following questions: “What does being part of a welcoming and inclusive community mean to you? And, why do you want to be a part of this project. The youth were very creative with their applications, and samples are included with this report. The youth team has been meeting weekly since May 5, 2010
Meeting Format
WIC Youth Team meetings follow a regular format of checking in, group and teambuilding activities, and activities that explore welcoming and inclusive communities. In order to prepare the WIC Youth Team for facilitating activities with children, members take part in a variety of activities facilitated by staff. By taking part in these activities that explore welcoming and inclusive communities, the youth are not only developing an understanding, but also learning tools that they will be able to modify and replicate for use with children. WIC Youth Team members identified that if they are to lead conversations with children, they need to understand themselves and culture as well. “How do we really know what we are doing, if we don’t know why we are doing it?” – Jonina
At the conclusion of all icebreaker, teambuilding or issue-exploring activities they are debriefed and explained, and the youth are given a hand out that describes the activity. All information is collected into the individual member’s “toolkit” which will be a resource for them to draw on in the future.
At the end of every meeting, each group member has a chance to reflect on the day and write in their journal which is kept in their “toolkit.” The hope is that this will not only allow them to track their personal progress, but also provide a space for them to think about the activity they participated in and how or if they would do it again during their workshops.
Bus tickets and food is provided to all WIC Youth Team members.
Project Development and Meeting Themes
Meetings have been organized according to the
group’s development and readiness to be able to talk and share their thoughts and ideas openly. As the group has progressed, a shift has been made from personal and group skill development to development of the after-school workshop activities and program development.