The Get Honest: Our Youth Matter Conference was held last Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Aurora. The York Region Alliance to End Homelessness organized the day long workshop with support from Street Kids International. The conference was both a project ending event and an invitation to York Region groups to continue with the collaboration and skills building approach to capacity building that the Streetjibe project piloted for the past 3 years.

I had the privilege of managing this pilot project since it’s launch in 2006. Street Kids International initiated the project, building on it’s poverty work in the Region over the past 6 years.  Streetjibe’s founder members were eleven practitioners from nine community non profit organizations. These staff and their respective agencies agreed to form a learning community that sought to build new skills and form collaborative relationships so young people have improved access to relevant services. In the second year we expanded our learning community to include any interested member of the community or agencies serving youth. The whole Streetjibe story can be found on our blog where we shared our collaborative work and encouraged the use of social media tools to foster learning.

One of the most exciting and inspiring stories came from Jenny Vengris from the Hamilton Social Planning & Research Council.Jenny describes how her project, working in partnership with young people has made a significant impact on the Hamilton community. The Street Youth Planning Collaborative is an outstanding example of an effective community collaboration that others groups across the province are looking to emulate. Some of Jenny’s strongest recommendations centered on the importance of community based research to leverage funder support and how imperative it is to have a Social Planning Council that coordinates, responds to and supports these research initiatives.

This video is one of 3 videos that I uploaded to my Blip TV channel. Here is the closing segment of her presentation( third and final presentation (9 min). While the videos are a bit long, they are very useful for us here in York Region as we struggle to catch up to the rest of the province (and country) in respect to securing funding support for a York Region Social Planning Council.

Here are 3 other short videos from the Get Honest – Our Youth Matter Conference:

Emma Rooney our conference organizer opens the day with this impassioned message to participants.

Tom Hollands, a Streetjibe participant talks about his experiences in the Streetjibe Learning Community.

Ryan Caleb, a Youth Speak participant who attended our World Council and Stigma workshops talks about how Streetjibe contributed to his learning.

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