Youth, Education, and Marginality: Local and Global Expressions

Chapter 3: The Unique Status of Marginalization: The Birth of Youth-Empowering Parents

chapter 3 62 society?” “Why do some Canadians continually and generationally reside in these marginalized communities?” and “Why should resources be invested to make the lives of Hassan and his parents easier when there are other issues that deserve more priority?” Whatever the answers to these questions may be, they are not questions that we are well equipped to answer. One of us now has a degree in law, and the other a degree in business. We are not experts in scrutinizing why the conditions are what they are. What we are well equipped with, however, is our experiences —that is, we share the same story as Hassan. We read and translated mail, handled financial matters, and taught our parents the basics of computers. Ultimately, we elected not to ask ourselves why these conditions exist but, rather, how our experiences can improve the learning of others in our neighbourhood. Like Hassan, we grew up in Regent Park, which is considered to be Canada’s oldest public housing complex. It was built in the 1940s and is located near the heart of downtown Toronto, occupying a three-block radius in the area south of Gerrard Street East to Shuter Street, and east of Parliament Street to River Street. It is a densely populated community, comprising approximately 7,500 residents in 2,083 households squeezed into 69 acres of land.3 Fewer than 150 of those households have annual incomes above $30,000. The average income for residents of Regent Park is approximately half the average income of the rest of Toronto.4 Adult-youth interaction is lacking in Regent Park, where 37% of the population is under the age of 14 years (compared to the city average of 17.5%), and 56.4% of the population is under the age of 24.5 For many, these are the statistics that stand out when they hear the phrase “public housing.” It evokes a particular image—one of welfare dependency and low levels of education. Our goal was to utilize this situation for a positive benefit—one in which the tasks that Hassan performs would not be seen as a deterrent but, rather, as a set of skills that could be refined and managed for progressive youth and community development. The outcome was a program called Youth Empowering Parents (YEP).6 YEP A typical community program aimed at youth has one or more adult instructors providing the service to them. This is where our program differs since instead of youth being service receivers, they become service providers. We titled the program Youth Empowering Parents because that is precisely what occurs—it is youth who are given the responsibility to ensure the achievements of adults, either their own parent(s) or other adults from the community. At present, YEP offers computer and English classes to non-fluent Englishspeaking adults in the Regent Park community. To best explain how the YEP The Unique Status of Marginalization 63 model works, and what makes it different from others, it is best to contrast YEP with other programs offering the same service. A typical computer and English class usually functions as follows: there is one instructor and a group of students; classes operate sometime between Monday to Friday during the daytime; and everyone follows the same module outline at the same pace, regardless of each student’s individual skill level. A few obvious concerns are that many adults who need access to these programs are at work when classes are being offered, the pace at which the curriculum progresses is either too slow or too fast for many students, and the language of instruction, English, is not their native language, which causes difficulty in understanding the instructor. These concerns can be dealt with by means of private tutoring, however, such a service is simply a luxury many Regent Park residents cannot afford. Yet what if private tutoring was free? What if low-income residents could receive one-onone tutoring to assist in their learning? YEP provides this very service by engaging community youth to deliver that free tutoring. A youth volunteer, such as Hassan, is assigned an adult— either his own parent or another adult from the community who speaks the same language as he does. For the entire semester, Hassan is tasked with teaching that person English and/or computer skills.7 It might seem odd that these youth are engaging in this type of...