A few weeks back I spent five days in Ottawa representing TakingITGlobal at a national youth conference: Unite & Ignite 2010. The event was a collaborative effort between TYPS Youth Centres des Jeunes Canada, The Students Commission, and the Centre for Excellence in Youth Engagement (CEYE) to bring together youth and adults committed to youth engagement to learn, explore and make decisions on important issues. This was my first time representing TIG at an event and I had very little idea of what to expect. I was taken on by TYPS as an "Environmental Expert and Facilitator" and I knew that I would be facilitating daily youth workshops on a range of environmental issues.



On my day of arrival I received intensive training on facilitation skills by The Students Commission. I was really impressed by the quality of the training and material provided. Teams were assembled to address issues around the Environment, Youth Homelessness, Child and Youth Rights, Youth Physical Health and Youth Mental Health. Facilitators were trained on using the Young Decision Maker Model which is a system generated by youth in collaboration with adults that acts as a resource for youth to go through the process of generating ideas, doing research, gathering tools and taking action. More information on the YDM model can be found here http://ydm.engagementcentre.ca/



My role, I found out, was to facilitate a group of approximately 20 youth in a series of discussions on environmental issues using the YDM model with the goal of formulating a "recommendation" to be presented at the last plenary session of the conference. The first session was difficult and many of the youth in my group were disinterested and had trouble staying on topic. With the help of some activities, the youth in my group began to understand their personal relationships and investment to the environment. From then on, the workshops sessions became increasingly more dynamic. I was really impressed with the youth in my group. Their ability to explore information and to articulate their ideas was really inspirational. My group came up with a recommendation in the form of a challenge. They designed a project and called it "Project Spiral Lightbulb", calling to all youth organizations present at the conference to make every effort they could manage to reduce energy consumption. Beyond the workshops, community building exercises were a huge part of the conference. There were games, there was dancing, a jam-session, a costume night and open workshops were youth could explore everything from photography to relaxation methods. The element of fun was a huge part of the experience.



One of my favourite parts of my experience at Unite & Ignite was having the opportunity to witness and facilitate collaboration between youth and adults that was absolutely based on giving youth a voice and intergenerational collaboration. It is not often that youth and adults are on a level playing field, especially in matters of decision making. Unite & Ignite made every effort to ensure that this was the dynamic that the conference was based on and I found it to yield incredible results.



Here's a video made by the digital media team showcasing tidbits of the conference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrqHASNQC-M