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Province's youth call
for violence to cease The study says abuse is widespread and growing in the province, conclusions based on the stories of 80 young people. They spoke about everything from bullying, fighting and domestic assault, among other topics. Joanne Culley is a Peterborough-based consultant and production co-ordinator for a recent video called 'Voices Against Violence.' She helped a group of Peterborough students put together the 11-minute video that was culled from an hour-and-a-half of footage. The video is now available for use in the school system as a teaching aide. Joanne says the larger study has some similar echoes with the local research done for the video. "Youth here told us violence was a problem in their schools," says Joanne. "Youth told us violence is also quite prevalent at parties," says Culley, noting one girl in the research is quoted as saying the party violence is frequently "the girls getting into a fight." As well, Culley says another youth in the research notes "there are gang fights, where one person's friends will fight against another person's friends." But Culley says the youth she encountered and worked with during the video-making process were mature and responsible. "They had a take-charge attitude that suggested they could make a real difference," she says. The approach for the local video was for students to seek out other youths who were making a difference in their schools to ask them about their solutions to violence, such as peer mediation. In the larger provincial study, the report makes
seven recommendations, including lowering the voting age to 16
and involving young people in key decision making processes. The
report is the result of discussions that brought together youth
age 13 to 24 from across Ontario. |
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