A group of local youth have created the opportunity for other young people to meet their city councillors and community leaders.
Bridge the Gap is a community event for youth aged 18 to 30 to address a knowledge barrier to civic engagement. The event was organized by ten youth in the RISE program through Apathy is Boring.
Newscast: "Bridge the Gap"
Bridge the Gap Newscast
Tineke Weld attended the event to learn more about decision making processes in the province.
“I never really got to engage and understand why political systems are so important and how to actually give feedback and who to give it to,” said Weld.
Gaps in knowledge around civic engagement are exactly what the event organizers said they wanted to address.
“There is a lot of information everywhere, like on the internet, but it was moreso a lack of the information that people needed,” said Riley Campbell, coordinator with Apathy is Boring.
Through the RISE program, ten local youth asked over forty youth about barriers to civic engagement. The key issue they identified was access to information.
Darian Shakerinia, one of the youth organizers, said that while there are countless ways to get involved in civic engagement activities in Halifax, many people don’t know where to start when they have a complaint about accessibility or transit.
“In Halifax, what we found was that there’s an ample amount of things going on here. There’s so many advocacy groups and volunteer organizations and community groups,” said Shakerinia. “Even with all of that, a lot of people didn’t even know where to start when it came to basic things.”
To address this issue, the organizers created Bridge the Gap to bring youth face-to-face with their city councillors and community leaders to ask questions. The event was held at the Glitter Bean Cafe to encourage conversation and personal connection.
Officials and leaders at the event included MLAs and NS Liberal Party Leaders Iain Rankin.
In additional to political figures, there were several community leaders at the event, including a librarian and Jayme-Lynn Gloade from Everyone, Everyday, a project at the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre.
Gloade said many people she talked with were not aware of Everyone, Everyday and were surprised about the format of the project.
“We’re trying to rewire people’s brains to decolonize in the sense that we’re not a service delivery organization. Everything is free,” said Gloade. “All of our programs are based off of community members that want to share stuff, and people seemed very surprised by that.”
The organizers have finished their RISE project Bridge the Gap, but the resources they developed for civic engagement will remain on their Instagram @bridgingthegaphfx and Linktree.
Resources include contact numbers for Nova Scotia government services, templates for writing to elected officials, and links to other Apathy is Boring resources.
Apathy is Boring is taking applications for the next group of RISE youth in Halifax until November 30.