Kitsilano Neighbourhood House: Youth Advisory and Leadership

Kits House Youth Advisory Group

Welcome to the Kits House Youth blog. This is a forum for youth in our advisory group. We’ll be posting topics of interest to Youth living on the West Side of Vancouver. You’ll see topics like:

• Student finances: budgets, university finance planning
• Urban lifestyles of westside youth in the context of community
• Education
• Art and the importance of it for youth and welcoming community
• Politics 101 — municipal and provincial parties, how campaigns work
• Importance of sustainable practices
• Diversity, Inclusiveness vs racism

We encourage you to comment on any of the blog entries. In fact, the youth with the most comments on their blog entries will win a prize! We are looking for prize sponsors for best written blog, best art design and most comments. Contact kate@kitshouse.org if you would like to donate a prize!

Please do become a friend of our Youth Programs on Facebook and follow us on Twitter: @kitsyouth

Youth in 57 Minutes also known as: Y57

 Youth in 57 Minutes project assists youth, who are inactive or who feel under represented by mainstream media, get involved in their own radio program.

Youth in 57 Minutes, also known as Y57, is a project with GETOUT Initiative from the City of Vancouver created as part of a Legacy program designed specifically for youths (ranging from ages 15-25) to engage youths in today’s community. Currently hosted by Ovey Yeung and Jamie Cessford, the radio show is aired live at 7pm, every 4th and 5th Monday of the month on 102.7FM,Vancouver’s Co-op Radio.

This serves as a way for youth to express their talents and perspectives, thereby building their capacity for community engagement, empowerment, and gaining tools and skills needed to regularly air a diverse youth-focused, youth-driven radio program in collaboration with peers and community partners. The Youth in 57 Minutes program offers a space to interact with other young people doing youth initiatives in the community around empowerment, youth participation and youth issues.

Y57 is an alternative media broadcast, showcasing socially engaged and musically inclined youth. They are a public platform for youth artistry and issues. Broadcasting every 4th and 5th Monday/month 102.7FM at 7pm Twitter: y57media Facebook: Youth in 57 Minutes

This volunteer based radio station is a place for young people to be introduced to the world of radio broadcasting and to build communication, radio, and media skills. The project establishes an accessible space where young people and youth service agencies can share their experiences and circulate information about services and support network for youth. Kinex and KAYA launched this programme by facilitating inclusive group dynamics, providing capacity building workshops, as well as facilitation skill workshops, and youth engagement training. Some of the issues raised by past work on Y57 concerning the youth are quite varied and include: health, labour issues, resources, global issues, English as a second language, sexuality and poverty. If you’re interested in exploring broadcast media, we encourage you to check Y57 out! If you live on the West Side of Vancouver: Kitsilano, Kerrisdale, Point Grey, Dunbar, Arbutus Ridge and you decide to volunteer to do a feature story on Kitsilano Youth Advisory Group and Kits Neighbourhood House!!!

Write a Letter, Make Earth Better!

A lot of British Columbians have been avidly writing letters to our government regarding our environmental future. Why don’t you join in and make the first step to gloabl sustainability happen?

Letter Writing Tips

Simple handwritten letters, or meeting in person are the most effective and convincing ways of having your voice heard. When writing to your representative please be sure to:

• Be brief, factual and polite
• Be clear about the purpose of your letter: make a clear ask; or tell them you support (or oppose) something
• Use the correct form of address:
  • The Honourable Christy Clark, Premier of British Columbia: “Dear Premier Clark”
  • The Honourable Barry Penner, Minister of the Environment: “Dear Minister Penner”
  • The Honourable Carole James, M.P.: “Dear Ms. James”
  • The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Dear Prime Minister Harper”

Sample Letter to a Politician

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing to you today to express my deep concern for the state of the our community, province, country and planet.

Climate change threatens the future of the earth and everything in it. We must shift away from the extended use fossil fuels, and implement solutions that move our economy towards a sustainable one.

Three great things that I believe could help with this are:

1. Establish and maintain a permanent moratorium on new oil and gas development.
2. Invest in clean, renewable energy, in all its various forms (wind, solar, tidal, bio-fuels, etc.)
3. Move as quickly as possible to meet and exceed our country’s Kyoto targets.

I look forward to discussing these matters with you as my elected representative.

Sincerely,
Joe Smith

Over the past three years, we have promoted 12 specific policy initiatives to the BC government:

1. Strong goals for climate action and greenhouse gas reduction;
2. Strong energy conservation goals;
3. A strong commitment to produce more power from green, sustainable sources of electricity;
4. An acceptance that we can use BC’s dams to firm up wind energy, and the value of aggregated wind energy as a contribution to the grid;
5. Smart metering, differential rates, and the ability of energy saving companies to be able to sell saved “negawatts” to BC Hydro for the same price they pay for new megawatts;
6. A Public Benefit Fund on hydro bills to finance efficiency upgrades and/or renewable energy;
7. A Standard Offer Contract for small wind, solar, tidal energy, etc. (as in Ontario and Germany);
8. A review of the BC Utilities Commission mandate to “serve the public interest”, which the BCUC has usually interpreted to mean “cheap power”, ignoring social and environmental benefits;
9. Strong support for solar hot water;
10. A rejection of polluting coal-fired power plants, like those that were proposed for Princeton and Tumbler Ridge;
11. A commitment to include the cost of greenhouse gases in all power contracts;
12. More support for sustainable biodiesel.

While the government has supported our positions on many of our goals, the recent commitment to greenhouse gas reductions are not as strong as we would like. From the government’s perspective, however, the carbon tax and other measures are bold and politically risky proposals, and they need you to tell them that you support action on climate change and clean energy, or they may feel compelled to retreat to a more business-as-usual approach.

Writing letters makes a difference!

Install Solar Hot Water

Thinking of doing a sustainability project for your school? Need an efficient, timeworthy, and effective way to change the world?

BC Sustainability encourages you to install solar panels at your school that generate hot water!

Link: http://www.bcsea.org/solutions/citizens-and-homeowners/install-solar-hot-water

Click the link to learn more about how you can not only sustain the Earth but also your wallet.

If you’re interested in this project for your own household….

Link: http://www.solarbc.ca/

Climate Change Showdown

So my brother’s school, Shaughnessy Elementary, has gotten involved the Climate Change Showdown contest from BC Sustainability. I thought it would be cool to share it with others.

The Climate Change Showdown is a way to encourage kids to be sustainable by giving giving them a chance to win prizes by completing and maintaining certain sustainable tasks in our daily lives.

It doesn’t ask people to go change the world or anything like that. The tasks are day to day things such as your diet, or even just visting a website.

If you’re a teacher and is interested in getting your school involved in this BC-wide contest, please visit … http://www.bcsea.org/learn/resources-for-educators/climate-change-showdown

What To Do With Your Money

Hello again,

Hopefully you have read my previous posts about starting to save money. If you have, you should now be applying the tips I have shown you and starting to amass some money. Now is the time to start thinking about where to keep this money in our dynamic and unpredictable world. Money just left in the bank at a low-interest rate can actually be worth less once you take it out due to inflation! In this post I will talk in further detail about your options when investing your money. The four main options you have are stocks, bonds, the bank, or a combination of these.

Once you have a substantial amount of money and some free time, you should start looking into stocks. If you have the free time (you will need it), start doing some research into stocks. Stocks can be
very rewarding if enough research is done when buying them. However, they can also be devastating without the proper research or sheer bad timing. First off, research into the type of company you would like to invest in and start looking into how these companies have done in the past and what trends and predictions are pointing to. Then you have to think about how you would like to use the stock market. Do you want to invest in something risky and try to make big profits short-term, or do you want to invest in a company (ex. some banks) that is more stable and make profits long-term? Stocks are risky investments due to the nature of the stock market these days. If you want to start to look into stocks, start with a small amount of money, while you learn, and go on from there. Stocks can be the most rewarding of the three if used correctly. Without much free time to spend researching into them, I don’t recommend diving right in and investing your money into them.

A second option for saving money, which are less risky, are bonds. Bonds are for the most part less risky than stocks, but often offer less rewards. Corporations, towns and even countries put out bonds for people to invest in them for longer periods of time. Bonds can vary from a couple of years all the way to 20 years to mature completely. You should only invest money you are sure you won’t need, for a while, into bonds. However, if you do have money just sitting there that you don’t think you will use for the next while, you can think of putting it into a bond. For example, RBC is offering a bond that matures in 2 years at 2.5% interest. You will not be able to find that kind of rate in a regular bank account.

If you have no free time and are looking for something 100% safe, you can invest your money into a savings bank account. If you are thinking of going this way, get at least 2.00% interest so that your money isn’t just sitting there doing nothing.

Just as a last little point, if you are scared of the risk or just don’t have time for research, you can do a combination of the options mentioned above. You could invest mostly in the bank and some in stocks and bonds. It is also good to diversify your investments, just in case of problems. You may also want to invest in a mutual fund or a hedge fund, so that they take care of all the research and invest your money for you in a diverse range of stocks.

I hope this helps you all pick a great way to keep saving and watching your money grow!

Youth in Vancouver should check out this financial conference for youth happening next weekend May 14: http://www.financeforyouth.ca/conference2011/

Youth – Future Voters

As a student currently in the 11th grade, the voting age rapidly approaches. Einstein’s special and general relativity theories may be at work as time seemed to have literally flown by. If my math skills aren’t permanently fried from spring break, there’s only one more year until the class of 2012 has the important responsibility of every eligible Canadian – voting.

As some of you may know, a general election was called on after Harper’s Conservative government was defeated through a no-confidence vote on March 25th, 2011. This event coincidentally occurred at a perfect time to discuss the topic of youth as future voters and voting in general.

From a statistic taken by Elections Canada, only 37.4% of eligible voters aged 18-24 filled out a ballot in 2008. With less than half the eligible voters participating, I’m not sure if I understand why there is this immense apathy towards voting. Some analysts examining this issue say that youth are not taking action in elections because “politicians don’t care about youth issues or don’t talk to young people in their own language”.

However, in fact, by not filling out ballots, young Canadians lose the important opportunities to make their voices heard by politicians. Whether you choose to believe it or not, we can indeed influence the government and politicians through a simple check on a ballot. The more votes received, the more powerful the consequent message becomes. Additionally, the legitimacy of a government lies in the fact that it is elected. Low voter turnouts may call into question this democratic legitimacy.

The right to vote is a cornerstone of democracy and is a fundamental part of our democratic right. It’s protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Furthermore, exercising our franchise allows us to speak out and let our voices and opinions be heard. Compared to other forms of political participation, voting does not require a lot of time or effort. In other words, it is one of the easiest ways to have a say in how your society is governed.

Do some research. Find out what political parties may address important problems that concern citizens. Watch the news on television, read the newspaper, and utilize the powerful tool of the Internet to learn more about candidates and the registered parties. For example, the Elections Canada website offers a list of the registered candidates in each riding (available April 13th). Find information about the candidate that best matches what you feel is important in a public official.

Take this into account in the coming years, and see you soon at the polling station!

Ever heard of the SAT II??

Hey guys! My name is Tiffany and I am currently a senior in high school dealing with the very important issue of the SATs. For those of you who are thinking of applying to the US, or even those who aren’t sure yet if they do want to apply, the best thing to do first is to know what the application process looks like.

You see, about 10 months from today, I decided that I wanted to try applying to schools in the U.S. I wasn’t sure I would get in, but you’ll never know unless you try right? Back then, I thought it would be a simple process. First of course would be to take the SAT reasoning test, the standardized test that is required by most universities in the United State. It seemed simple and straightforward; or so I thought. Unfortunately, no one had ever told me that there was such a thing as SAT IIs or otherwise known as Subject tests. These subject tests are used to show your proficiency in specific subjects like Mandarin or even U.S. History and help you stand out from the thousands of applicants who are eyeing to get into the same schools as you. Most Ivy League schools require their applicants to take at least 2 subject tests but would recommend that you take more than the required number. Other schools may not even require subject tests at all, but would highly recommend them. The UC universities are a great example of this. Starting next school year, or for those graduating high school in 2012 or later, they will not be requiring their applicants to take two subject tests. They will still review them if you choose to send it to them, but it will not harm your application at all if you choose not to take them.

Here are some general information about the SAT subject tests.
1. None of the tests have more than 95 questions.

2. There are 20 different kinds of tests that you can choose to take a few examples would be Math, US History, Mandarin, Physics and etc.

3. You can take up to 3 tests in a single testing date.

4. You are only given an hour to complete each test.

5. Most of the SAT subject tests are offered at the same time as the reasoning test except on March.

I would highly recommend that if you are planning to take the SATs, to buy a SAT workbook and practice, practice, practice. It really helps prepare you and will give you an example of what the test will be like on the day itself. Another thing I would like to suggest is taking the reasoning test at least twice. Sometimes, even if you have practiced a ton and worked through all the exercises, some things just don’t go the way you planned. But now that you know what the test is like, taking it a second time will be much easier and it will increase your chances are of getting a better mark.

I really hope this has been helpful and if there is anything else you would like to know about the SATs, leave a comment and I will do my best to answer your questions.

For more information on subject test and the reasoning tests visit http://sat.collegeboard.com/home. This website will give you more details about the SATs and how to prepare for them.

University Finances

Hello again,

This week I am going to talk about money saving and its importance towards university. In our day and age, many of you are going to be planning on attending a university and lots of you will try to attend the best one you can. However, tuition prices, transportation and living costs are an issue that also has to be present in your discussions with your parents. This subject is often overlooked by youth as a lot of us don’t fully understand money and it’s vitality in our daily lives.

Money = Graduation

Your parents understand the importance of money and budget accordingly. When choosing a university, take a look at the tuition prices and living costs before telling your parents you “haaaave” to go there. For example, if you are accepted to a prestigious ivy league school but its costs are much higher than your family can afford (don’t be afraid to ask your parents!), think about alternatives. You may say the education you will receive from an ivy league school is much better than a local university, but if you have to take out tens even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, think twice. The slight increase in salary, on your first job, out of an ivy league school probably would not make you wealthier, due to the debt that has to be paid off. Compared to a local university where you may not have to have living costs (living at home), and the tuition is smaller.

Queen's University

Local universities in BC are also very highly rated and rank among the top schools in Canada. UBC ranks very highly in multiple school rankings and so does SFU for undergraduate programs. Next time you think about university and where you want to go, take into account finances!

Alan

The Importance of Visual Arts

Hello Youth Leaders,

It is time for some FUN with art!

My name is Teresa, and I admit that I am not an artistic person in general, but I do have a passion for it, and I have dreams to become more artistic.

Art comes in different forms, such as music, creative writing, photography, and dance. I would like to discuss specifically visual arts in my first post. Visual art can be as simple as drawing pictures, but I believe everyone has potential to come up with master pieces no matter how simple.  What matters most is your willingness to attempt it.

Nobody is born an artist, but rather it requires diligence and regular practice.

In cases like Steve Jobs, the cofounder and CEO of Apple company, art has played a big role in contributing to his success. He took a calligraphy class in Reed College in his 20s which is important because ten years later, he was able to design all the Mac icons. These cute icons and fonts are so eye-catching and it’s the reason why the Apple products have become so popular.

In addition, I interviewed one of my friends from Uhill Secondary school who is in a art class. Her artwork is voted to be the cover of school agenda this year. I think she has a different perspective of seeing the world, and that’s one reason make her arts look so unique and fresh to us.

She suggested that the importance of art for her is simply freedom. She can feel her hands uncontrollable flying with the paint and as I talked to her about this I could see the enjoyable moment in her eyes as she talked about art.

This is the magic about art ~ The freedom to express yourself!

Youth Can Make A Difference: Reduce your Carbon Footprint!

Global Warming is refers to the steady rise in the temperature of the Earth. It is caused by the greenhouse effect, when temperatures rise due to the heat and light trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere by greenhouse gases.

Whether we like it or not, it is inevitable that global warming is going on as we speak. Many countries have been meeting over the past few decades to discuss future goals and missions to reduce carbon emissions as a global community, but preventing further damage to the environment can start with small, everyday steps.

The small initiative that we can take as youth can make a huge difference!

1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2. Start a compost pile or bin! Toss in food items instead of into the garbage. This can both reduce garbage, and produce organic material for your garden.

3. Switch to energy saving lightbulbs and appliances. Look for the energy star symbol. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs last way longer and use far less energy than regular lightbulbs.                                      

4. Turn off the light, or heat when your not using it. Make sure not to leave the computer or TV on for long periods of time. You can save over $90 a year by turning the computer off before bedtime, or before school. Put on a sweater instead of blasting the heater on. Turning down the central heat just one degree will reduce your heating bill by 8%

5. Walk, bike, use public transport, or carpool!

6. Take shorter showers, within 10 minutes.

7. Use recycled paper and recycle printer cartridges.

8. Eat local, organic foods. This saves the resources used up in transporting these products across the world.

9. Carry a water bottle around, instead of buying bottled water!

10. Reduce your plastic consumption! Use a reusable bag when shopping, and choose paper bags over plastic when necessary.

REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT!

To join environmental youth advocacy groups, here are some good ones:

Kids For Climate Action – a fun one that teaches you about effective advocacy through flashmobs (dance and song in public places!) and  letter writing!

Environmental Youth Alliance - a youth driven organization where you can volunteer and do internships, educate and be educated on isues related to the health of our urban environment & the well-being of its people.

ECHO – a youth sustainability network that connects all secondary schools in Vancouver on events and advocacy.  They’re currently planning a youth-driven Earth Day event.

Check Your Head – their work is motivated by the understanding that a healthy, democratic and sustainable future depends on a generation of informed, empowered and active young people.

SPEC - Society for Promoting Environmental Conservation has a school gardens project. To find out how you can build a vegetable patch at your school talk to SPEC or check out the VSB garden project page.

MVYSN -  Metro Vancouver Youth Sustainability Network, promotes environmental awareness and responsibility in our schools.