Our Commitment to Anti-Racism
At YouthWrite, we're all about inclusion. For 28 years, we've done everything we can to ensure that our camps and workshops are spaces that feel safe, inclusive, and diverse, where youth from all walks of life can come together and bond over a mutual love of writing and the arts. There are no cliques at YouthWrite, and we encourage all of our participants to eat meals together, write mail to each other, welcome each other to the table, and make friends with someone new each day.
YouthWrite is committed to JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion), and our instructors, staff, and supervisors receive yearly updates to their JEDI training. Our commitment to diversity is reflected in our staff and instructional teams, as well as in our sponsorships and community efforts to reach marginalized youth and provide them additional funding opportunities. We believe that every youth should have a space at the table and take great effort to make that goal a reality. We provide scholarships for youth who identify as Black, FMNI, 2SLGBTQ+, new Canadians, low-income, or persons living with a disability. In 28 years of running camps and workshops, we have never turned away a child in need.
This year, YouthWrite is taking our Anti-Racism commitment to the next level by including Anti-Racism as a core theme of our camps. Each of our camp experiences will include course options that are based in Anti-Racism practices, taught by qualified and diverse instructors who have lived experience and training with Anti-Racism, as well as being professional artists working in their fields. Our camp experiences will also feature panel discussions and guest presenters on topics of Anti-Racism such that our youth participants, regardless of their own lived experiences, are able to engage meaningfully in this important and often avoided discourse.
By bringing Anti-Racism into the core of our camp experiences, our goal is to provide participants with new skills (writing and communication skills), new behaviours (openness, kindness, bravery, acceptance), and new knowledge of:
- Different cultures and life experiences beyond their own
- Storytelling, writing, and communication
- The power of art and voice
- Various social, economic, and political barriers that exist in our world
- Racial discrimination present in themselves and others,
- Ways to overcome and combat these barriers,
- How to connect with and celebrate diversity and culture
We are committed to keeping Anti-Racism at the core of YouthWrite, and we hope to secure enough funding ongoingly that we can continue to hire Anti-Racism professionals to provide this essential work in all of our weekend and week-long camps and workshop experiences in perpetuity. The more funding we can secure, the more we will expand upon this programming in the future. We are excited and humbled at the prospect of learning, growing, and continuing to build a kinder, more inclusive, more just world together.
