Understanding the Issues Helps Lead to the Solution

By Nicholas Warsza, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada Rep. to the PWRDF Youth Council

Every two years young people from across the country congregate at the Canadian Lutheran and Anglican Youth Gathering (CLAY). The last CLAY was held in August 2016 at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. CLAY has a wide variety of activities for youth.  It offers speakers and various servant activities, as well as an opportunity for those involved in the National Youth Project to update and inspire youth to keep working.

The National Youth Project’s current theme is “Right to Water”. It looks at the issue of water in Indigenous communities in Canada, specifically the need for water and waste water systems in Pikangikum, Ontario. The NYP committee switched from only a fundraising-based model to an advocacy-based education model that also included fundraising.

Normally, the theme of the NYP is changed every two years, however, a conscious decision was made for the current project to continue from 2010 until 2018 because it’s such an important subject. In order to live out the suggestions of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission to strengthen the understanding of issues Indigenous communities face — more specifically Pikangikum and their lack of access to clean drinking water — a ‘mixer’ activity was created and run at CLAY. This activity helped youth to connect with each other and to understand what living without clean, running water is like.

It was amazing to see almost 1000 youth run around the UPEI campus with buckets of water while climbing over an obstacle or carrying the bucket without using their hands and other physical activities that attempted to simulate difficulty in accessing water. These same young people pondered the place water holds in their own life, their faith and the wider global community.

The activity concluded with an advocacy component. Each young person was given a post card and tasked with writing to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs to ask for change in Pikangikum’s water situation. It was amazing to see the youth understand the issues in Canada’s Indigenous communities and realize that they can play a part in the solution.

You can download the mixer activity here to use with your youth group or parish community.