Youth Volunteering at the Citizenship Ceremony held in Parkdale Community on March 14 -
11 youth volunteered as ushers, refreshment servers, guest coat check staff and others for the citizenship ceremony held during the march break welcoming over 15o new citizens, including their family members and friends. The ceremony was held at the Parkdale library basement auditorium. Youth had the opportunity to serve our communities and engage with the diverse groups of residents from all over Toronto.
Youth Ambassadors Training by Ontario Coalition for Smoke-Free Movies
Two of our youth program participants, Tsewang Dhargyal and Ngawang Rigden Lhawang and volunteer team leaders of the youth-led project, STOM were selected as Toronto youth ambassadors of Ontario Coalition for Smoke-Free Movies. Tsewang and Rigden attended the full day Ambassador training program presented by Youth Advocacy Training Institute (YATI) at the Kingsbridge Conference Centre in King City on March 26th. They fully participated in learning about the 5 call for actions and also received media training; for their brave media interview practice demonstration they each received $10 Tim Hortons gift card.
Wednesday Weekly ESL – Language Skills Development Program /workshops
There were four language sessions held during the month. The first session introduced summer job opportunities at Ontario Place, CNE and others. Using the job description samples, they identified some of the key skills required to apply for various youth summer jobs. They also learnt the top ten interview questions through role play. The Wednesday of March Break (March 16th), youth group took a trip to AGO to explore the Maharaja exhibition. For all the 12 youth except one, it was their first time visiting AGO and they were all very impressed with the show activities including Indian dance demonstration. On Wednesday March 23rd, 14 youth attended VOICES – Newcomer Youth Film Festival, a project of YMCA funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The Film festival was held at the TIFF Bell Lightbox theatre downtown. 8 films made by 13 immigrant youth from nine countries were presented; the movies touched upon their experiences and the issues they encounter as newcomers. All of our program newcomer youth said they were inspired by the movies. Youth also enjoyed the great selection of food and drinks served at the event! The last Wednesday session on March 30th, youth had an interactive session in learning about the youth summer job program at St. Stephens and Youth Employment Services. They worked on creating a complete check list to be job ready for the summer.
Peer Tutoring Club Fridays
There were three sessions in March. On average, 15 youth attended each session.
The youth technical skills development courses were held concurrent to the tutoring club accessing the 4 computers available in the library’s study room where the program is held. The technical skills courses were instituted so that youth can further develop further their computer skills through the peer tutoring club. Youth volunteers will continue to help instruct the learners based on the course outlines put together by youth worker. The courses launched so far are – Keyboarding basics, Word processing basics and PowerPoint basics.
Tutoring club volunteers also helped their peers work out their homework assignments.
Parkdale Newcomer Youth Committee (PNYC) – a youth leadership group initiated by the Youth Program of PIA and PCIC
Documentary Filmmaking Workshops for Filming team members of Shake Tobacco Off Movies (STOM)project:
The documentary filmmaking training was provided to the youth film making team members to get a clear overview on the documentary making techniques including the complete process from planning the structure/story to the editing. The objective was for the team to be more equipped in making their 7 minute documentary as part of the STOM project. Kalden, Choewang, Rigden, Thabkhae and Chomphel attended the 5 hr/ two-part training on March 10th and 17th presented by a renowned Documentary film maker, Geoff Bowie who was also a resident of Parkdale.
PNYC March Meeting:
On Tuesday March 15th, we held the March meeting of PNYC members where new members for 2011 – 12 (April to march 2012) were confirmed. New editors for the youth SPARK newsletter were also appointed. Confirmed list will be published in April newsletter.