Voicing their concerns
Truro students propose formation of student advisory council
Some local students are hoping to make a difference among their peers by forming a Truro Youth Advisory Council.
And, based on a recent presentation to town council, they are making progress.
The effort is being driven by École acadienne de Truro students Averi Winn and Liam Holeiter who say they want to set up the advisory council with high school counterparts at the Cobequid Educational Centre in conjunction with input from from town council.
Winn talked about two goals in creating a council space.
“One being to learn more about municipal politics because there is an interest from, and for, youth to be involved in politics, but there is not a whole lot as far as where we can learn and become involved in what is going on,” she said.
“Another is to figure out how to better provide services specifically to youth. We understand nowhere is perfect, but we can all work together in making our environment a safer and more secure place with better services for everybody.
As an example of a topic to be covered, Winn pointed to youth homelessness.
“That is an issue here in Truro and access to services like food banks and public facilities, for washrooms and water, where you don’t have to go into a business and buy something,” she said. “Access to services is important and people don’t realize, especially when we have a large population of people who do have the money to go in and buy a drink when they need one, but not everybody can do that.”
CEC student Arpan Kaur pointed to drugs as another issue which should be discussed.
“I think there are a lot of problems around drugs in Truro,” she said. “I feel like that is one of the main things that should be challenged.”
Kaur, an International baccalaureate (IB) student at CEC, said she was looking to establish a council herself with friends but when that didn’t work out, she heard about Averi and Liam’s work and decided to come onboard.
“I saw it as being a good opportunity to do the same thing, just with different people,” she said, noting networking will be a side benefit of being on the council.
Winn talked more about the structure.
“We’re thinking of having monthly meetings where we would act as an advisory council to the Truro Town Council,” she said, noting they’re basing it off a similar youth council in Amherst, but adapting it for Truro and area.
“You wouldn’t need to be elected to council. Anybody from the ages of 13 to 19 could come sit on council and be part of the discussions. Then we would have elected positions; the chair, vice-chair, secretary and town council representative. The town council representative would go to (town) council and be the voice of youth council when we couldn’t have meetings together.”
Winn also sees opportunities for a town councillor or two to take in a youth council meeting and provide direction or advice.
“It’s a great idea and these kids who talked yesterday, seem to be bubbling with confidence. I think that is a big key right there,” Truro Mayor Bill Mills said, adding there was a youth council in the past which he interacted with as mayor.
“They feel the liberty to ask the questions and certainly understand the process that we go through as a town on issues. They’re also aware of overlapping issues with the municipality (county), province, and federal government.”
Mills said, from his experience, the only words of caution or advice he would pass along, at this point, is to encourage the younger members to speak-up, saying he noticed 13 and 14-year-olds continually deferring to the older members.
Second, he found the leaders would stretch themselves thin as far as extra curricular activities.
“Students who usually get involved are the ones who already have a full plate,” he said. “But it’s good training for the future, we’ll see where this goes.”
Winn said she has already reached out to Truro-bible Hill-millbrook-salmon River MLA Dave Ritcey.
“So we can get as many voices in on this as we can, because it wouldn’t be a collaboration without town council. It’s not just a bunch of us deciding what we want and saying this is going to be the youth council. It’s how can we best work with town council to provide as much as we possibly can for youth and the people of Truro and area,” she said.
Anyone interested in joining or looking for more information, can email truroyouthadvisory@gmail.com.