OUR HISTORY
HISTORY
Matt and Rafiki met in a youth group put together by REACH Edmonton. The group was called Youth Action on Addiction. Youth Action on Addiction organizes events around our community to raise awareness about the effects of drugs and alcohol.
Matt and Rafiki shared their stories and it occurred to them that both have dedicated their lives to helping/counseling friends and strangers in their community. While they come from different places, they respect and understand each other’s stories, which makes for an amazing friendship. And so after some discussion, the idea Youth Speak Edmonton was created.
Matt and Rafiki were pretty unsure of what the first few steps were. They made a website and logo on paint that looked like a toddler threw it together, and were trained by The Support Network and had prior training working with youth, but didn’t realize they would need to be an actual organization to make everything official. After all, they were youth and considered themselves youth mentors long before Youth Speak Edmonton came into play. However, with the help of some community members, Pixel Blue College gave Youth Speak Edmonton a space, some posters and business cards to start us off. In 2011, Youth Speak Edmonton became an official society and we got our first grant from Edmonton Community Foundations.
While they didn’t advertise too much, Youth Speak Edmonton found youth who were interested in joining from different demographics and for a year and a half they held bi-weekly discussion groups at Pixel Blue College, inviting youth between the ages of 12-17 to attend. It was evident that there was a need for Youth Speak Edmonton in our community. They discussed issues such as courage, relationships, family, sexuality, etc. and engaged in positive and creative activities with relation to the topic of the evening.
After a year and a half, Matt and Rafiki realized that they wanted to expand Youth Speak Edmonton, not just to the youth coming to our discussion groups, but to schools and community organizations across the city. In the beginning of 2013, Youth Speak Edmonton created the Your Voice Matters Project. Matt, Rafiki and a woman who had graduated with a master’s degree in counseling created your Voice Matters. It covers some of the issues they discussed in their group meetings. They gave away prizes, put together activities, discussions and questions, turning Your Voice Matters into an interactive program. Your Voice Matters quickly expanded to Boyle Street Education Centre and Camp Fyrefly, both of which were incredibly powerful experiences. They had the chance to hear some amazing stories from resilient youth in our community and got some awesome feedback regarding Your Voice Matters and Youth Speak Edmonton. More recently, Youth Speak Edmonton partnered with iHuman Links and were working with their high-risk youth mentors to develop a program geared towards high-risk youth in Edmonton. With iHuman youth’s input, they trained these youth to be mentors in their community and to facilitate discussions. They had the opportunity to work with them and learn from their stories.
Youth Speak wants you to be heard and a chance for you to extend our passion for humanity across the city to people of all demographics. We believe that most of what we learned is from the people we've met along the way and the open conversations we've shared. We are so grateful to be on this journey and can't wait for what the future holds!
"People always told us we couldn't do it. We didn't let that discourage us, we took that as encouragement."
“You have a voice! Be heard! We want to connect youth with other youth. That makes a strong community."