A Youth PLACE Leader writes about attending the Leadership World Café in Toronto
I didn’t really know what to expect when we went on the trip. I knew the general point of the trip was for us to connect with youth who didn’t grow up where we did, who had a completely different experience. The city itself was much different to what I’ve known. Sure, Calgary was diverse, to an extent, but Toronto had such a huge presence of these different cultures. It was most certainly a shock because I had never seen a place with such a strong influence of people, if that makes any sense. The first night we were there really shocked me, the city was so alive with different things happening all at once.
If the first day was about seeing the city and its people from a distance, the second day was us actually interacting with it. The entire second day had the most “oh wow this is real” moments. We started off the day with a huge discussion about our faith, or lack of, and why we believe or don’t believe certain things. Not exactly the small talk you would expect at breakfast, but still an interesting conversation nevertheless. The conversation was insightful, but it also allowed me to learn a lot about the people that I had already thought I knew. It taught me that, and I do realize how ridiculous this will sound, not everyone is like me. I went on the trip with the impression that everyone else had similar beliefs as me, and while the foundation of discrimination was there, we all took very different approaches to it. The discussion was also very respectful, which is something I had never experienced before. Normally, when such heavy topics are brought up, a group of teenagers don’t really accept the conversation with such open arms. Before, whenever I tried to talk about this stuff with other people, I was always met with either extreme hesitation or indifference, which is the most annoying thing when you’re trying to have an insightful conversation with people you know, but prying would be useless.
The second part of the day was when we went to Frontlines to finally meet with the Toronto youth. We did our introductions and got the formalities out of the way, then things took a sharp turn. We had gotten onto a conversation about what it was like growing up as minorities, and while I had thought the conversation was going to be in the general direction of “yeah racism happens,” we started talking more about how a lot of the struggle comes from the home. How you’ve got an image to uphold in the public, so you’ve got to do everything in your power to make sure that people don’t know. What shouldn’t they know? Well, everything. And on top of that you’ve got to make sure your parents don’t know either. In a room full of people we had just met a couple hours prior, everyone was spilling their guts, talking about things you don’t really talk about to a group of strangers. After that conversation, calling the room “a group of strangers” feels wrong, but that’s what they were. A collection of people I didn’t, and to be quite honest, still don’t know. And yet somehow, that session created something else.
I believe that in order to get a good grasp of something, you need to understand it’s people first. I could give some generic response about how I gained a lot of perspective and learned a lot about the differences between Calgary and Toronto, but if I’m being honest, learning about my fellow ambassadors was what really hit me. I learned things about the people I’m supposed to create something with. Everyone showed a part of themselves I never would’ve seen had I not gone on the trip. When I go to the next Youth PLACE meeting, I’ll be able to connect with other people in a way that would only be achieved by seeing that a collection of people can connect on anything, no matter where or how they grew up.
-R
