I had a pretty wild weekend. On Friday night I attended a presentation on the recovery of the local Roosevelt Elk populations by the Sunshine Coast Natural History Society. I had barely recovered when, on Saturday night, I attended a concert at the Pender Harbour School of Music. I mention this not to brag about how my life is one crazy rock & roll party but to point out a problem.
At both of these events I was the youngest person in the room. To be honest, there was one teenager at each event but other than that I was pretty much the lone representative for the under-50 demographic. It’s not uncommon with this job that I find myself in these situations but attend any local meeting or event and you’ll often be hard-pressed to identify anyone under 35.
Where’d they go?
When I interviewed Linda Curtiss last month, she talked about all of the accomplishments and organizations she and her contemporaries started up and ran for years back when they were in their twenties and thirties. Not so now.
It was noted at the elk talk that younger people aren’t filling the ranks of associations like theirs anymore and it threatens their survival. If school enrollment continues to drop, focus will naturally shift to provide services for the aging majority and away from youth projects.Youth sports still seem to be a priority but there doesn’t seem to be a lot for kids who don’t play soccer.
When local youth and a handful of adults pushed for a skateboard park a few years back, nothing happened. You need adults to get involved with these initiatives and, increasingly, the adults around here had kids years ago, somewhere else. It seems to me that kids are starting to become an afterthought.
This sense of despair was captured recently by an anonymous teen on the penderharbour.org bulletin board under a thread called "The Future of Pender Harbour":
"I’m 15 years old. I have one thing to say and that is I have absolutely no plan to remain here after graduation. There is absolutely nothing here for young people. "School. A few odd jobs. But nothing else is offered in Pender Harbour and, without a car or licence, there is even less. You people really have no idea because you have not been a kid in Pender Harbour. "You know what it is to live here but there is no way you can put yourselves in the shoes of a kid, in 2008 with so many opportunities all over the world, and technology etc, who is stuck in a little town like this, with absolutely nothing to launch you into that outside world of opportunity. Pender is screwing the youth over."
We should at least consider the possibility that maybe we are.
I want to speak to you, Brian, about several important topics which I will email you about. I am involved in youth justice and criminology. My phone no. is 604-886-2729. I recently moved to the Coast. I took the RCMP course to become a facilitator in circle sentencing of youth. Was formerly involved in Air Cadets for ten years.I have info for you that would be useful. Regards, Kathy (Katrina)
Posted by: kathy samuda | August 22, 2008 at 05:59 PM