You Do It

If you are interested in embarking on a project such as this in your community, we have included some information and resources that may help you along the way.

Getting Started
Find a local organization that is interested in or mandated to work with youth or newcomers and present the idea.  The funding our project received was from the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association and Citizenship Immigration Canada, ISAP Program, Ontario Region.  To receive the funding it was important that the benefits of such a project were clear and that the book was to be made by youth for youth.

Benefits
The benefits of this project were many:  providing a voice to a population that is generally not heard regarding their settlement experiences; creating a community of newcomer youth that could continue to support each other; developing a resource to aid other newcomers as they settle in Canada; proving employment opportunities for youth; designing a resource that could support Canadian born citizens in developing a greater awareness of the challenges facing newcomer youth; and bringing these issues and challenges forth in the community to mention a few.  Embarking on this project in your community would also have many benefits.  The same as the above mentioned but specific to your people.  It would be beneficial to allow your youth to tell their stories, to have information specific and relative to your community, and to build a network and support system of newcomer youth in your community.

Staffing
The Thunder Bay Multicultural Association hired two adult project coordinators and two youth facilitators.  Click here for job descriptions.  The coordinators were meant to support, guide and monitor the youth, allowing the project to remain youth driven.  Having youth workers with immigrant and refugee backgrounds was key.  It ensured they had an understanding of the issues faced by newcomers and this commonality was important in building relationships with the youth contributors.  Having two youth was important for mutual support and the sharing of the workload.

The Process
Once the team as in place, we met and developed a comprehensive action plan for the duration of the project.  This gave us direction on where to start the project and helped keep us on task.  As time passed and events arose, we developed more specific individual action plans.  (Click here to see the action plan.)

The Contributors
The main focus of the beginning of the project was recruiting newcomer youth to contribute their story.  The youth workers engaged in outreach at the local schools and other organizations where newcomer youth can often be found.  The potential youth contributors were invited to an information session to learn more about the project and what their participation would mean.  They were asked to participate in three meetings.  Originally we were going to have a youth advisory group (that gave us suggestions on what to do and helped with outreach) and the youth contributors group who shared their stories.  In the end, they amalgamated into one group.

Once the contributors were on board (which was an ongoing process), we had a number of meetings and workshops to present them with different ideas for sharing their story, e.g. through poetry, art, prose, and photography.  (It might be beneficial to offer workshops on individual days instead of all on one day.  It would best if they had more time to experiment with telling their stories in different ways, and then choosing the one they like best.)

The Additional Information
In addition to the stories, the book has information on Canadian life and customs, local services and organizations.  This additional information grew out of a lively discussion by the youth of things they wished they would have known when they first came into Canada.   The list was lengthy, but we tried to cover as many of the topics as possible.

Editing, Formatting and Printing
Once all the information and stories were gathered they needed to be edited.  It was important that we tried to maintain the true voice of the youth.  Hence, the stories were reproduced as close to the original submissions as possible, with minimal editing for clarity and spelling.  The entire editing process took a great deal more time than we expected.  Plan at least 1.5 months for this.  We hired a graphic artist to help format the book in an exciting and accessible way.  This also took a great deal of time.  Probably plan at least 1.5 months for this as well.  We received three quotes from different printing companies.  They needed to know a lot of information that we had not thought about such as the weight of the paper, how many color and black and white pages, the number of pages and more.  They really needed to see what we had before they could tell us a quote.  It would be best to go into the shop and see what the different options and formats are when making your decision.  We printed 250 English version books.
 
The Book Launch
A book launch was to be a celebration of the youth, their courage and honesty and of the book they created.  It took place a Saturday afternoon at the local art gallery.  To prepare for the book launch, the youth contributors met and created different sub committees to plan the launch.  It was great having the youth involved in creating the event.  The program included presentation of the book, story readings, local multi ethnic performers, group poetry on life in Canada, and some great food.  Approximately 70 people attended and included the contributors and their families, along with other supporters of the project, local city council representation, media and others who came to learn more about the project.  There was a great response to the book.  (Click here to see the brochure.)

Translations
In addition to the English version, we had the book translated into French, Spanish, Karen, Chinese and Arabic.  The languages were chosen based on the ethnic communities represented in Thunder Bay.  It took quite a while to get the book translated.  Consideration needs to be put into how the translators will receive the document and how you will know which part goes where when formatting it into the book (in case you do not read the translated language).  Also take into consideration that once translated the books might be more pages and it might not be an even number.  This is important when formatting the book and when finding out the printing costs.

Web Page
We developed a web page with the Finding Our Way book available to be printed as well as this template, opportunities for other newcomers to share their stories, information on the contributors, summary of the project and a link to the face book group.

Presentations
TO wrap up the project we developed a presentation to be offered to schools and other organizations that were interested.  We also contacted national organizations that work with immigrant and refugee youth to inform them about the resource.  Take into account that completing the presentations was challenging during the summer months. 

Great Response
The book has received great response.  It has excited community, members, schools and other agencies that work specifically with youth.  Of note is the interest that Aboriginal organizations have taken in the book, recognizing that some of the challenges faced by immigrant and refugee youth are similar to challenges faced by Aboriginal youth moving to an urban setting.

Our Big Learnings
The idea was great.  The opportunity for youth to tell their stories, feel the pride that comes with that while at the same time helping others was awesome. 

It was challenging to get all the contributors together at a common time for meetings and workshops. A great deal of follow-ups and reminders more than 2 times/week were required.

When planning the timeline, the fact that a great deal of time needs to go into the editing, proofreading and formatting needs to be taken into account. 

Consider that the staff member that is compiling the team’s information for the book should have strong English writing skills.

If you want art and poetry to be a part of the book, more effort and workshops may be needed to help them discover the possibilities.

Having food at the meetings is always a good idea.

We had two youth workers who were unable to stay with the project because of school commitments.  Consider the workload of the youth when they are being hired.