The Citizen met eight youth involved with the city's Youth Services Bureau programs to hear their views and understand the challenges of growing up in the city when the cards are stacked against you. What they reveal in this edited transcript is often surprising, but, they insist, they are just telling it like it is.

Citizen: How do you think that adults and officials in the city perceive youth? Is this accurate or not?

Felix Ng, 23, Rainbow Youth Advisory Team: "I think youth are perceived as being redundant members of society, because they don't really do anything, except we're expected to be in school or get some kind of part-time job or get into all sorts of trouble. I think people are viewing youth as a whole and they forget that there are many youth out there who are very empowered who have a lot of skill sets to offer the community. People tend to look at youth issues as street violence or people who are at risk rather than looking at things people are accomplishing. I think people hear more about youth problems and they don't hear enough about things youth are achieving and doing really well at."

Celeste Freeman, 18, Rainbow Youth Advisory Team: "One of the great barriers that I find when it comes to youth is ageism. Often youth are perceived to be irresponsible, incapable of doing things. There are a lot of barriers that officials will put in front of us. We don't have the experience, but in order for us to have experience, we have to do something."

Tamara McLean, 22, Regional Youth Advisory Team: "I think youth in general are looked down upon. They figure one youth goes out and breaks something, so all youth do that, whereas I think the way we perceive adults is different, it's one bad apple."

Alin Yusuf, 18, Michele Heights Youth Advisory Committee: "I think youth are more judged on the ethnic groups they hang around with. Adults, when they are walking down the street and they see a certain youth group of a certain race, they ... usually think they're up to something and don't realize they're just hanging around. In my area, that's how it usually is. Youth that don't have employment are always around, especially in summertime, so they just hang around on the sidewalk or at the basketball court, and that's usually seen as a negative influence to the younger kids. That puts constraints on youth because if people start complaining, you have nowhere to go."

Sabrina Dinelle, 20, Regional Youth Advisory Team: "Adults are intimidated by us. They make up these bad perceptions in their heads about how evil we are. They just hear about one bad youth who's done something horrible, and that makes us all look like we're causing trouble, but in reality, places aren't always open to go hang out so you have to find somewhere, whether it be in a park or on a street corner. It doesn't mean you're causing trouble."

Citizen: Do you think youth crime is a problem in Ottawa? What did you think of the statement of city councillor Jan Harder's that "non-white" youth were responsible for incidents in her ward?

Zahrah Hajali, 20, Central Youth Advisory Committee: "I think youth are not looked at as a group, they're divided into street youth, city youth and black youth. If they think you look like a street youth, they always think you're out there trying to bum money from somebody or you're drunk, or you're high on something and you're just a lowlife with nothing. If you come from a rural or city area and you live with your parents and you go to school and you're on the football team, they always look at you like you're our next prime minister ... even though you could be worse than someone on the street. And then they look at black youth. The media always catches on to 'black' right away (in crime news). So, of course, people are going to see someone who is black and think, 'He's going to steal my wallet.' I walked into an interview the other day and the gentleman who did my interview said, 'By your name I knew you weren't Canadian.' And once we started talking he said, 'Your English is perfect, you seem to understand things,' and I thought, 'Well, what did you expect?' That's the way they'll always look at you."

Felix: "There's youth crime, and then there's just crime, and people like to make youth crime a bigger deal. If you look at the types of things youth do, they haven't really changed in the last 40 years in terms of petty vandalisms or pestering people in general. This is just youth behaviour. It's just about trying to assert yourself and your independence. When you talk about issues of crime and violence, these aren't youth issues, these are issues that involve racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty. People aren't looking at: If there's a bunch of street youth getting in trouble, why is that? It's true there are a bunch of suburban kids who go out and win awards, but then go out and get into all sorts of trouble. I did that as a teenager, but that's just the sort of thing you do. If people are getting into serious crimes, you have to look at the structures: Are the schools teaching them anything? What's going on at home? Are they dealing with issues of insecurity or bullying?"

Stephanie Leclair, 23, Rainbow Youth Advisory Team: "I don't see (youth violence) as an issue, but it's made to seem like an issue because every time there is some kind of crime that happens and a youth is involved, it's always front page (news) so it makes it seem like it happens a whole lot more. But in my own experience and with my friends, no. Having crimes perpetrated against them, yes. I hear a lot about people with hate crimes perpetrated against them, sexual abuse, any kind of abuse, stalking and stuff, so most of my experiences with my friends are them being on the other side of the crime."

Citizen: What about treatment by police or law enforcement?

Alin: "I think it's very biased. In my area, there was a fight that occurred a few weeks ago and there was a white guy and a black guy. Apparently, the white guy reported the fight and it was assumed there was a whole group that jumped him. So they held the black youth and questioned him, trying to get names out of him. Why do the police think that there's always more than just one black youth behind every fight? They believe that if they see a black youth, black youth usually go around in groups and in fights especially. That's how it is around the area, if something happens it's always whoever is on the street gets tapped on the shoulder and asked, 'What happened, can I take down your name and get a description?' "

Misty Parent, 20, Central Youth Advisory Committee: "Just on my own, I've been in trouble with the law a few times down on Rideau and whatnot (in drug-related incidents) and I remember when I got arrested by two of the officers down there and when they were taking down my information, they were literally calling me 'liar' and they judged me for what I did. Even now, I'm going through the court and I've changed a lot in the past three years since I've used the YSB services and since I'm on YAC (the Youth Advisory Council). But even now I still see the cops and they still perceive me as a badass on Rideau Street."

Sabrina: "I think it's easier to pick on youth because we don't know our rights as much as adults and it's just easier to pinpoint us as the problem. It's really easy to just stop a youth on Rideau and ask, 'Are you selling weed?' when there are way worse crimes out there that they could be stopping. One of my friends has a really nice car and he obeys the traffic laws, but they'll pull him over all the time because they think it must be stolen or there's something hot in it. But no, he earned that himself."

Zahrah: "A friend of mine is 22, he's a computer engineer and he drives a car ... with tinted windows. He picked me up at work one day and it was 10 o'clock at night and a cop followed us halfway home and stopped us and asked us where we were going. And we said, we're going home. Why would you stop us in the first place? We were driving perfectly fine. What did we do? It's only because he's black and he has a tinted car. He gets stopped all the time."

Citizen: Did you encounter problems in schools?

Celeste: "I was dealing with a lot of different things. I was living in a shelter, I was living on my own at 16 and I was trying to finish school. I got a lot of help ... but when it comes to teen pregnancy or homophobia or all these other issues, it's just not there ... and the sexism and the bullying in school is going to an (all-time) low. Unfortunately, the counsellors are not seeing it. You need to feel secure in the school, or else how are you able to actually finish? It's just this big problem. I actually had to deal with that back home. I got beaten on a daily basis, I can't even have kids to this day because of it. It's just really sad, and you see all these other kids going through maybe the same thing and you can't do anything about it."

Zahrah: "There was one incident that happened to me when I was 14, and I was going to Gloucester High School. I got pregnant and the school told my parents, and they transferred me to McArthur High School because they said I wasn't capable of doing a general level program. I had to do basic, all because I got pregnant in their school. I had a lot of things going on with my family at that point, so you're spaced out, but nobody knew what was going on so they thought I had a learning disability because I couldn't focus because of all my problems. That was the worst experience I've ever had with a school."

Misty: "I just think they have to be more aware of situations. Because when I was living on the street and going to school, I wasn't in tune with anyone, but there was no counsellor there for me. It was pretty hard."

Sabrina: "School's just a hard place. It's not just students, teachers have their favourites and then they have the ones they pretty much give up on. But the kids they're usually giving up on are the ones who need the help the most. It's not fair. The kids who are getting straight A's don't need the attention that the kids that are getting failing grades need. And it's hard too because kids that are getting picked on because they're overweight or don't have the right clothes or are getting beat up, you don't know if you should tell an adult because sometimes they'll go talk to the youth that's picking on you and that makes it even worse. When you leave the school, the person is going to finish their business, just not on school property."

Citizen: What are the youth social programs, or the things that helped you get where you are going?

Zahrah: "I've always had really positive input from the people around me, they could be my teachers, my counsellors. Here at the drop-in all the workers always see my attitude and push me towards things and opportunities. That sort of helped me get thinking. But sometimes I would feel I can't do it because it was overwhelming and my personal life would get into it."

Stephanie: "For me, there were kind of two things, one was being on the youth advisory ... I had talked about how I was interested in doing activism and community work, but I didn't know where to start. Other than that, I've always kind of sought out my own kinds of opportunities. I volunteered at the rape crisis centre ... that was a really good way of connecting with other women and getting involved."

Celeste: "I was living at a women's shelter for about three weeks. I decided to remove myself from my house ... and there was a person that came at the shelter and talked about GLBTQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer) issues and I felt very comfortable and then she asked me to start volunteering and I got involved in the youth advisory. I'm from a rural community, a small town in Quebec called Montebello, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing for youth. And you just get bored."

Citizen: What are the barriers to youth seeking out social programs they need?

Stephanie: "I think for a lot of people, there's a stigmatization in certain kinds of services, like counselling. I think a lot of people see that as personal failure, like you must be totally out of wack if you need to go for counselling to sort through things. I think for me that was a big one. I think another one is, if, say you're queer and you're coming out and you want to talk to a counsellor, but you're not ready to tell your parents, what do you tell them you're going to access services for?"

Felix: "A lot of these buildings aren't accessible, so what happens if you are a youth with a disability? These buildings could be made easily accessible. It's just a matter of money."

Tamara: "Waiting lists I find are very long, so a speedier service. And a lot of kids take the bus. So YSB is pretty accessible, but there are certain services I use where I can't get to them unless I sit on the bus for three hours."

Sabrina: "I would have just loved to have heard about all of these services at school. It wasn't until about two years after I graduated that I heard, and after that, you're almost at the point where you're an adult."

Alin: "To me personally, it's better if when you hit about 16, that there are more youth programs and employment services for youth because around that age if they get into that kind of stuff, they'll be more focussed, instead of having to be hanging around. I don't see much youth programs around (my neighbourhood) or employment services. There should be more."

Citizen: What's the biggest issue to you, in your life, in terms of youth concerns?

Tamara: "A lot of people have to understand, they say that youth are the future, well then start treating us like people, because we just tend to be brushed over all the time. They want to cut money from our education, but they want us to be smart and rule the country properly... they've got to get a new perspective on things. Things in society today are a lot more difficult, it's a lot harder to get through."

Felix: "I think a lot of the problem is identifying the problems within youth and taking more of an active or constructive approach to helping youth. Even taking a different strategy. How are you going to create services if you don't consult with youth? I think giving youth a voice is a lot more my concern. If you have some forum to speak, you feel a little better, you feel more confident in your own abilities."

By Elaine O'Connor
28 July 2003

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id=C0D065BA-4319-44FE-A13E-BD3649038459