This afternoon Seana and I went to the skate park to check it out and see what was going on. It was really cool just to see how everything worked out without us doing anything. We started just sitting to the side on a ledge and just watching all the people there: two rollerbladers, five bikers and one skateboarder. Slowly the three older boys started to do crazy tricks and ‘show off’, at the same time as moving closer on the ramps to where we were sitting. Eventually they all were taking a break right beside us and we were able to start up conversations with them. We got to know a little bit about all three of them, but one 18 year old boy, Chance*, talked to us a lot about the last couple years of his life. He is really good on roller blades, even though he has only been going for 2 years, but does not have much time to go to the skate park to practice. Chance is paying $500 a month to sleep on a floor of his step dads- not even in his own room, helps his mom pay rent and works many hours a week. All of this on top of trying to do his entire grade 11 year of school in one semester because he had to work all last semester. Chance is super smart and loves school but he doesn't have time to do his homework to keep up his grades or sometimes even to go to school. His favourite subject is history and his last class he finished he got 98% in. He wants to finish his grade 11 this year and then save enough money to leave Fort McMurray. When asked where he is going to go he responded with “anywhere but here”.
- Amanda
It was only our third day working at the dugout, but around mid day we had kids just pouring into this youth center. They came from Fort McKay, which is reserve land about 45 minutes north of Fort McMurray, with a lot of first Nations communities. This one of the most effected regions outside of Fort McMurray by the oil sands, because the observations of rights for the first nations peoples is incredibly limited, and because it is so close to the sands it is just being hugely affected environmentally and socially as well.
These kids were amazing though, they came in for a school trip to use the water park, but since a pipe had busted in it about a week ago, they all poured into the center and we really got to engage them in here instead. It was such a blessing to us, because I have never met youth that were so enthusiastic about getting involved in different activities, and just wanting to learn so much. It was amazing. I was able to organize a soccer game out back with a couple of other staff, and we got the kids running around which was just awesome, and really reminded me of the power behind team-building and life lessons that can be pulled from sports. It was also very powerful being able to pour into them, as they really responded to us just caring about them and wanting to know about their lives. Many of them also really responded well to music and wanting to learn guitar and drumming and vocals etc. We were all just really excited to use our talents also in engaging them, and it was incredible how they lifted each other up in everything that they were doing and just really positively interacting to each other. The teachers seemed really grateful for the afternoon, but we were blessed by it too. It seems that although the sands take such a huge toll on communities such as that of the Youth of Fort McKay, there is still people working really hard for positive change, and the youth that came in here were amazing. Hopefully we will get to see them later on this summer!-Jen
As Jen said, these kids were amazing. They were rocking out on Rock Band, Seana was teaching a little chorus of girls how to play djembe and one girls asked me to teach her to play guitar. It was the most fun thing of my day! One girl after another wanted to learn and then asked me to play a song for them. So now we are thinking of making beginners guitar as an elective during the summer! Soo excited!
- Sarah
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