Johanna's story

I would like to let you know about part of my experiences, around a year and a half ago. I went outside of my city because of my studies; there in high school I met many kinds of different people.  People that change the way I see some things, the most guys were in vandalism, acts of theft, drugs, and among others.  I learned how to trust them, how to deal with them and them to me as well.  I was their friend but it does not mean I was one of them!  I tried teaching them the meaning of life but they taught it to me!

It's amazing how talking to a young man who looks nothing nice, who makes you feel scared at first sight, it makes you change that perspective.  This person becomes to be gentle, awesome, maybe with more values than some of us...  These guys make groups because they are looking for love, communication, some one that try to understand them, just pay a little bit of attention and trust to them, believe in their self, protection, and why?

Could you ask you that?

I will anwser for you!

They do it because they feel marginalized from us!  It could mean many things; many that we do but cannot see.
How many times have you seen a guy in the bus, streets, and your neighborhood, whatever it is?
And you just ignored him/her?  Or do you make him feel inferior to you?

Returning to my story, I got away from them when I came here to Canada, losing any type of communication with them. I tried to communicate with one of them and I made it, how happy I was to know some of them reflected and are progressing with their lives without any help from someone else!  But how sad it was to know one of them was in jail!

My friend told me once, "I was in jail all this time before but I already have the opportunity to be free, not just because I am out of Jail!  I mean, because now I understand everything, I do not want to keep wasting my time anymore, I was really stupid!  It was hard , but I am happy because it helps me. I am on time to recover what I lost, I am free of all that was wrong".

If people like those guys, who could think they are completely lost, but they find the way to return back can do that, anyone can do it!
Be friendly sometimes you do not need to have money, whatever might be!  We just need to make relationships, friendships, take a little time to talk with someone else and you can make them come back to the beautiful life.

Johanna

Bully Basics

Hello Everyone! Welcome to our blog, We are hoping you are enjoying a good health as you are reading this. On this post we are going to talk about a little bit of Bullying, which is a pretty big issue happening at every side of the world, but we are going to be general and be focus at the same time within our community Red Deer, Alberta. Well first we are going to tell you the definition about what bullying is and then we are going to go into the facts, consequences and we are going to make some solutions we may have considered throughout this blog. We are hoping you like it.

Bullying is basically the act of intimidating a weaker person to make them do something. Bullying is one of the forms of abuse. Bullying is an everyday occurrence for many people. It is a bad way to abuse or take advantage over those people who are weaker and less powerful than the bullies, these abuses may be ways where the bullies may have control over the situation and it could be social and/or physical power. Now we know the definition and key words to define bullying and we have seen so far that everyone can be either the bully or the bullied. Bullying is not actually something we can see because it has grown with us with the time and we may not pay attention because it is something we consider normal, even though there are people who recognize these abuses and have been fighting against it.

Bullying can include behavior and actions that are verbal, physical, anti-social; some examples could be exclusion, gossip, and using aggressive body language. It can occur anywhere like schools, buses, walking on the streets, meetings and even in your own house. To have a better understanding of what bullying is we can referring to persons who intentionally have in mind to hurt anyone, physically, mentally, as well as emotionally, where the bully wants to get power/advantage over another person or group of people; the victim of the bullies may be recognized as “targets” because as you think the target is the center of attraction for the arrow.

Bullying can be defined in many different ways and as we said before it consists of three basic types of abuse: emotionally, verbal or/and physical. Some of the ways a bully tries to bully others is by using intimidation, talking to you in a rude way or just simple by ignoring you; and this may cause serious consequences. Unfortunately bullying does happen and we could stop it by having the appropriate recommendations by someone who has knowledge about this or just by using common sense on what is going on and try to resolve it where both sides do not get hurt because if you do you probably may become a bully as well and without noticing.

It is estimated that about 60-80% of children are bullied at school; which is a horrible statistic because acts of bullying are often invisible for adults for not realizing that bullying is what their children are suffering instead of what they think it is called “playing”; well we cannot sometimes accuse either parents or teachers because the bullies intimidate their targets and they (targets) because of the fear they may be feel do not speak out about it, because they think it may get worst if they do, another factor to not speak out could be the ashamed they could feel as being pointed as victims. Another example of bullying is being a “natural thing” because sometimes the bully offends in front of a group of people and the victim with the time may get used to it; the victims keep their problems to themselves because of the intimidation the bullies have done onto their victims. That is why it may cause a chain reaction.

It does not matter if the victims are women, men or children; all of us have the risk to be exposed to this and may cause us illnesses which some people cannot handle it. Those people who have been bullied for many years may have the risk to have long terms of emotional and behaving problems such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and/or problems to communicate just for the fact that do not trust on anybody. Bullying affects not only the person who is being bullied it also affects the people around and even the whole society.

Bullying may include name-calling, verbal or written abuse, isolation from some activities, and exclusion for social activities, bullies have found this “easy” way to get attention or to be the popular at school. They may bully because they are jealous (because there may be something who attracts them but they cannot have it) or acting like that because they bully themselves.

Bullying can be classified into two categories: Direct bullying or Indirect bullying. Some of the example of direct bullying could be physical aggression such as poking, throwing things, slapping, choking, punching and kicking, pulling hair, biting, pinching, etc. and some of the indirect bullying is characterized by threatening the victim into isolation, like saying gossips to make them embarrassed, refusing to hang out with their target, criticizing the manner they dress, lies, disabilities, race, rumors, mocking, etc. Basically indirect bullying is when the bully is not acting directly at the victim, the bully actually is going around the victim’s environment/background. 

Now we have learned a little bit of what bullying is and we hope this has helped you to understand issues around our community. It’s your decision to be bully, to be the bullied or to stand up and do something about it. Youth Voice’s goal is to reduce the amount of bullying in Red Deer as well another places around the world; now that you know what bullying is, let us know of what you think would be a good way to reduce bullying in our community or just simple share with us a constructive comment as well as experiences you may have seen. Now having said all of that the Youth Voice has prepared a little poster about what is bullying stands for:

Behaves like an idiot

Uses his/her brain? Don’t think so!

Likes to offend but doesn’t like to be the offended

Lies and pretends to have what they don’t

Yells because they don’t know how to get attention

Insults you as they talk

No respect for others, no respect for your self

Gives you their fake side of themselves

Brian!

Yesterday, after we had finished all of our final touches and sent out the first post we realized the most important person was missing! Brian! I met Brian last year when I became involved with Youth Voice and at this point I consider him a friend. He is the man behind everything that we do with youth voice as the head facilitator. Youth Voice would be nothing without him! Thank-you for your guidance, support and most of all patience (the girls like to talk a lot)!

Have a lovely weekend,
Madeleine

WE ARE YOUTH VOICE

Youth Voice seeks to better the community by advocating for Red Deer youth on current issues and empowering them to make their voices heard.


Providing leadership by:
1 - Identifying issues in our city that affect youth.
2 - Working together to generate awareness and dialogue.
3 - Implementing initiatives in collaboration with other Red Deer agencies and organizations.
4 - Encourage self expression in order to create solutions to youth issues in Red Deer.

My name is Jordan. I am a new member of Red Deer Youth Voice and I have been actively involved since September of 2010. I am 16 and I am currently attending Notre Dame High School. Leadership plays an important role in my life and I truly believe in being a leader and not a follower. I realized the benefits and skills of a good leader when I first joined leadership class at my school in grade 10. It has inspired and encouraged me to play a larger role in my community and youth voice has provided me with that opportunity. Being a participant of this group allows me to be a leading voice for the youth of Red Deer.


Hello, my name is Madeleine. I am a grade 12 student in Red Deer. I have been involved with Youth Voice for 2 years. I have been part of the Leadership Program in my high school throughout my 3 years at Notre Dame High School. I have been a member of Student Council and chaired and worked on numerous committees over the last 3 years. I am also strongly committed to the ND Students Against Drunk Driving Chapter which is an organization I am very passionate about and committed to. The most recent initiative I have committed to is the position of Co-Marketing Chair for the Alberta Student Leadership Conference which our Red Deer ASLC team is proudly hosting at home in Red Deer this May! The Leadership Program at ND provided me with the confidence and many skills to realize my desire to serve my school and larger community by joining other students to form or support organizations and committees with the common goal of working for positive change for all citizens. The opportunity YV has provided to work with many organizations within the City of Red Deer to support and improve the lives of fellow youth and all citizens has been an honour, privilege and invaluable experience. I have learned a great deal through the opportunities provided by the many groups and organizations that generously welcome and provide mentorship to me and my fellow YV members. I greatly appreciate the diverse personal experiences, viewpoints, values and cultural insights my fellow YV members bring to the table.  Our common goal is to facilitate an opportunity for the Youth of Red Deer to have their voice heard. It has been exciting and rewarding to be given the opportunity work on projects which contribute to empowering all youth and in turn all residents of our city!

Hello Everyone! My name is Megan. I have been an active member of youth voice since September 2010. I am 16 years old in Grade 11, attending Notre Dame High School. I have been blessed with a good home and loving friends and family. My hobbies include playing the piano, writing, and participating in leadership. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to be involved with leadership because I realize the importance of helping others, and encouraging all people to have a voice. I hope that together we can use our voices to make a difference in our city. Have a great day and God bless you!

Hi My Name is Niek, I am in Grade 12, some of my favorite hobbies include, listening to music and hanging out with friends. I am involved in many clubs and organizations within my school as well as within the community; I have been living in Canada for 11 years and in Red Deer for 9.This is my first year as a member of youth voice and so far it has been an awesome experience. Some of the youth issues I am most concerned about include youth homelessness, drug awareness and Environmental sustainability. I look forward to working with the youth of Red Deer, listening to your ideas and helping make YOUR voice heard.

Hi, my name is Johana.  I have been living in Canada for the past 15 months.  I came to Canada from El Salvador so Spanish is my first language and I am still learning how to speak English.  During the past 15 months I have volunteered with the NOW program which helps new immigrant student.  I am currently going to Notre Dame high school.  When I help people it makes me feel good and it is my inspiration.  I would like to become a Social Worker some day.  I enjoy helping people.  I think communication is the most important basis for good relationships.  I want to communicate with you, so write me.  

Bonjour! My name is Gilmar and I am from El Salvador, I can speak Spanish, but I am also learning English and French; I am attending Notre Dame High School and I have been here in Canada for about 21 months. I wanted to be involved in Youth Voice because I want to express myself and become a helper/leader within the community to try to make it better. Now you can see I am a newcomer in Canada and my background does not matter...having read my little history I want to know what yours is! 

We are interested in hearing your voice on issues facing youth today. We encourage you to post stories, experiences and thoughts on our blog. We can't wait to hear from you!