As the latest inevitable next news story about Toronto’s beleaguered mayor, Rob Ford plays out, I wonder what kind of role models today’s youth have to look up to. Television, radio, newspapers and the internet provide an endless stream of coverage of disgraced politicians, athletes and businesspeople. Poor decision-making, judgement lapses and bad choices almost seem to be de rigueur.
Wars are fought in the name of religion, military invasions change innocent people’s citizenship in an instant and elections are fraught with charges of vote-tampering.
The natural cynicism of teens feeds on this kind of negativity and there seems to be no end to the reasons they have to potentially turn away from thinking things could change – and that their actions could help to make things better for others, whether locally, or half way around the world.
Recently, my daughter has become involved at school with Right to Play,an organization that uses the transformative power of play – playing sports, playing games – to educate and empower children facing adversity. One of Canada’s Olympic athletes, medal-winning rower Silken Laumann is on its board and many other world-calibre athletes are involved. It’s in its infancy at my daughter’s school, but is a great way to get kids involved.
In the past two years, she has also had the good fortune to attend two We Day events. The brainchild of Me to We cofounders Craig and Mark Kielburger, We Day counts among its goals to empower a generation of young global citizens through an inspirational event and a year-long educational initiative. It raises money, and grows volunteers by helping kids see that they can have a voice and make the world a better place.
Both times, she has come home full of enthusiasm to do good. She’s become involved in clubs at school raising money to build schools in third world countries and donating gifts make happier Christmases to local families. She and a friend collected non-perishable food instead of candy at Hallowe’en for a local food bank. Ana a number of teens we know have recently spent their March Break weeks in Africa, Central America and South America volunteering and making a difference.
So maybe there’s hope yet. Maybe our young people can see the possibility of good through the bad. Here’s hoping the future is brighter than the clouds that sometimes line the horizon today.
