Youth learn healthy choices
Conference gives participants tools to make positive changes to their lives
Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Thursday, April 9, 2015
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Six Fort Simpson youth came back from a three-day conference empowered to make healthier choices in their lives at home, in school and for themselves.
A group of youth from Fort Simpson were in Prince George, B.C., for a youth conference from March 16 to 21. They are Daphne Squirrel, front, Tanya Hardisty, Friendship Centre co-ordinator and trip organizer, Lonnie Wright, Isabelle Menacho, Roderick Norwegian, Nathaniel Tsetso, and Tim Gargan-LaCasse. - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo
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Gathering Our Voices 2015, the annual conference that brings together more than 1,000 youth from across B.C. and Canada, was held in Prince George from March 17 to 20 and was the seventh year the Deh Cho Friendship Centre sent a delegation of youth and chaperones to the event.
The conference focused around engaging youth in discussions about culture, spirituality, physical mental and emotional well-being.
For friendship centre co-ordinator Tanya Hardisty, it was an opportunity to expose youth in the community to issues that they face in their daily lives. With this exposure, she hopes they'll be able to take what they learned at the conference and apply it to how they live.
"I hope they take healthy lifestyles from the workshops and it opens their eyes," she said, adding the issue of drugs and alcohol is an important subject for many youth in the community. "It's a big thing in how it effects their home lives. I hope they learned how to better manage with that sort of thing."
Hardisty said a big part of the experience is youth getting to see how aboriginal culture in another part of Canada exists, adding some of the first-time participants were surprised to see women and men both drumming and dancing, something that doesn't happen in the Dehcho.
The six youth attended workshops hosted at different locations in Prince George. From health and fitness, to education, respecting your elders, and sexual exploitation, youth were exposed to a number of issues that are important to living a vibrant and healthy life, said Hardisty.
Roderick Norwegian attended the conference for the second year in a row and said learning about aspects of living a healthy life was the most valuable lesson he took away.
"I liked the yoga workshop because we learned about how to handle stress," he said, adding it was his favourite part of the entire trip. "We learned healthy living with exercise and now we know how to workout safely."
He also attended the workshop on sexual exploitation and said he learned a lot about the subject, something he didn't know a whole lot about before going. He said he learned about how people in society take advantage of vulnerable individuals, and now knows what the signs are for this sort of activity and plans to keep an eye out for it.
Each youth who attended the conference is required to write a report about their experience, what it meant to them and how it impacted their lives. From talking to a number of the youth who went, Hardisty said they really enjoyed it.
"They appreciated the cultural experience and everything they learned," she said.
