QCGN Youth's Project
Over the past decades, Francophones in Quebec have taken formal steps to preserve and promote their language and culture. To most English-speaking youth growing up in Quebec today, this makes sense and we agree that steps should be taken to protect Quebec's uniqueness in North America. However, young English-speakers living in Quebec - from Montreal to the North Shore to the Gaspé - face their own set of unique challenges. In small English-speaking pockets scattered throughout the province, young English-speakers struggle to become bilingual, access services, create strong ties with their communities, participate in Quebec society and define their own identities.
In 2008, the QCGN Youth Standing Committee has been conducting regional youth consultations throughout the province. The findings of these extensive consultations were addressed at the Provincial GENERATION Youth Forum, and delegates from across the province had the opportunity to actively participate and propose strategic recommendations for the English-speaking communities. Five prominent themes were explored at the forum: bilingualism, identity and isolation, education, employment, community life. Arts, culture and heritage was also raised as an important topic for youth, but was interwoven with other themes.
The Provincial Youth Forum brought 100 participants aged between 16-29 from across Quebec together to callaborate on strategic recommendations and concrete project ideas to address challenges related to the the five themes. The result from the mentioned activities was the creation of a report intitled Creating Spaces for Yong Quebecers: Strategic Orientations for English-speaking Youth in Quebec. To download the report, click on the thumbnail on your right.
One of the clear priorities that emerged from the Creating Spaces report was to give youth the opportunity to engage to their community in order to contribute to an enhanced sense of pride, belonging, leadership and identity as English-speaking Quebecers. To do so, the QCGN has worked with its regional members and gathered 12 youth from eight regions to develop their community development skills through a wide array of youth-led activities, such as the elaboration of a leadership workshop and manual that was used by the 12 young leaders with other youth in their region. All activities and workshops were then compiled in a Leadership Workshop Toolkit to multiply the impact of the project. In this toolkit created in 2010, youth will get tips and ideas on the following topics: youth engagement strategies, publicity and outreach, facilitation skills, introduction to community development and workshop planning and implementation. The workshop was designed specifically for the context of a linguistic minority.
