Harewood Elementary Students Partner With VIU To Dream Big

I Have a Dream program matches VIU Child and Youth Care students to youth

As the bell rings to end the school day, eight Georgia Avenue Elementary students file into the classroom to attend the ‘I Have a Dream’ program. They enjoy a healthy snack of fruits, vegetables and yoghurt before engaging in games and activities designed to let them know that they are valued, their opinions are important, and that their dreams are achievable.

I Have a Dream is an afterschool program that was launched in the Harewood community through the VIU Child and Youth Care Department’s (CYC) Centre for Community Outreach and Care. The first group of children to participate are from Grades 4, 5 and 6.  April 12 was the last weekly class after 12 weeks of attending. When asked about their I Have a Dream experiences a brunette-haired 10-year-old girl immediately jumps up, excited to show off her vision board. It is a poster she developed with pictures and ideas that illustrate where she wants to go and how she plans to get there.

“It all starts with getting a job at 7-Eleven. Then, once I get enough money, I’ll buy a truck and go to New York where I’ll get another job at a 7-Eleven there,” she says thoughtfully while pointing out the visual cues. “After a while I’ll work in fashion and meet someone famous. Then I’m going to become a police officer and work on solving crimes.”

Other participants enthusiastically showed off their vision boards. One wants to work at the Tillicum Aboriginal Friendship Centre, then plans to be a vet and eventually a doctor. She cut out the words “Understand Yourself” and “Find Your Colour” from a magazine and pasted them prominently on her poster. Another sees herself as a singer.

“I Have a Dream is a social justice initiative focused on reducing poverty by introducing children to the notion of goal setting for future dreams,” said CYC professor and centre coordinator, Ashleigh Martinflatt.

Recently the Rotary Club of Lantzville came forward to donate $2,000 to support the I Have a Dream program. Martinflatt says without donations from organizations like the Rotary Club of Lantzville the Centre couldn’t continue to offer the groundbreaking community engagement research and program activities it has become known for.

“I Have a Dream is our latest program to launch and already seven more Harewood community schools and organizations have come forward to ask us to provide the service,” said Martinflatt. “The contributions we receive give us the ability to provide more programming for the community while offering our students valuable experiential learning opportunities. Without financial support from our community partners, we just wouldn’t have the budget to continue to offer the services we do.”

Third year CYC students Jessica Stevens and Melissa Pirart are facilitators. Throughout the course they have taken the kids up the hill to tour the many VIU facilities including the Culinary Arts Department, the International Centre for Sturgeon Studies, and to play basketball in the same gym the championship Mariners play. Each trip to the university is another opportunity for the students to dream big. Stevens says through the process she’s learned a lot about the children and herself.

“One of the main things I learned through running the program is that dreams come in all shapes and sizes. What struck me as we went along is that some children have never really thought about having a dream,” said Stevens. “Figuring out what a dream might look like and how they could accomplish their dream was a slow process of building trust and relationship. As the class progressed I could see the youth really enjoying the journey, envisioning a path and seeing the possibilities that open up.”

According to Statistics Canada the number of children and youth living in poverty in Nanaimo is on the rise and has been since 2006.  When asked about the program mission to reduce poverty, Stevens says the long-term effects of what they are doing may be hard to quantify but the seed they plant in these early years is a first step. She has no doubt the experience of I Have a Dream will guide the youth as they grow.

“We are not asking youth to pick a future and stick to it and I don’t think anyone is claiming I Have a Dream will reduce all poverty in the Harewood Community. However, if you give youth the opportunity to plan goals and dream about what they can do with their future it leads to positive choices,” said Stevens. “And I truly believe we have impacted the youth we worked with this year. Even if they just take their vision board home and hang it on their wall, over time it will be a reminder of what they once dreamed of.”

The Centre for Community Outreach and Care was established by CYC in 2013 to provide practical, experiential learning experiences to CYC students while strengthening ties to the community that VIU’s main campus resides in. Through the Centre they work with the local Harewood community to facilitate child and family focused projects and programs. For more information go to: http://ow.ly/10pIQ3

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MEDIA CONTACT: 

Dane Gibson, Communications Officer, Vancouver Island University

P: 250.740.6288 | E: Communications@viu.ca T: #viunews