al

THURSDAY. FEB. 24 was a very
important day for peer counsellors
of North Shore high schools.

By Steve Rasmus.
ZAP! Contributor

‘All day at the William E,.Lucas.

‘Centre, there were speakers, activi-
.Ges'and good food for all.

There were close to 150 coun-
‘seHors in attendance. from seven
different schools, There were repre-
sentatives from Seycove,’ Windsor,
Balmoral, Carson... Graham,

’ Handsworth, Keithlynn ‘Alternative
secondary school and Sutherland.
My school, Argyle neglected to
provide representatives because we
don’t have any peer. counsellors,
which is. kind. of lazy on our Part.
Sorry.
-The whole deal started at about
; 8:30 a.m. when everybody was sup-

: posed.to get there. and register. It! -

“was about nine when’ everybody

was finally there, so the whole day.

was a bit behind ‘schedule, but
nobody minded.:

66 There were close
to 150 counsellors i in
attendance from seven
different s cheols. 99

At 9 a.m. we . played bingo! But -
not just regular bingo — you
gtiessed it, multicultural bingo. It
was pretty cool.,

“ Everybody got a sheet with 10
squares. Written in each square was

“someone in the group you had to
find,

‘For example —— find someone
who celebrates the Tet holiday, or
find’ someone who knows the name
of B.C.'s lieutenant governor.

oy There was a wicked mystery
prize to be won: A huge box of
Bretton crackers. Honest.

-. After the round of multicultural
bingo, the first speaker, Chinese-
Canadian Eric Wong took the
stand.

His presentation was based on
three topics:

BH what is racism?;

® diversity; and

why we have to value diversity
in schools.

1 thought he was a great speaker.
providing amusing anecdotes
regarding his childhood as a
Chinese-Canadian.

We then all sat in a huge circle,
and did an exercise where we had
to pass two soccer balls around the
ring, without using our. hands. I'm
not sure, but I think the exercise
was to get us to work together for a
common goal, ;

After Wong was done, we broke
off into different groups, In our

groups, using large pieces of paper
and markers, we wrote up P.M.1.
charts.

The “P” (Plus) chart listed the
positive things that our schools are
doing regarding multiculturalism,

The “M” (Minus) chart was
where we listed the negative things
that go on in our schools regarding
racism.

The “I” chart was the Interesting
chart, where we listed the things
that we think are interesting in our
schools.

After the charts were drawn up,
and posted on the walls, Mark
Lefroy,.the North Vancouver
school district se¢ondary counsel-
lor, led: a discussion on the
strongest topics listed on our charts.

The next activity is my favorite
part of any day — lunch. We. were
treated to a multicultural buffet,
prepared by Lucas Centre’s finest.

‘We had Pasta with Marinara
‘sauce from Italy, which was my
-favorite. We had nachos and salsa
from Mexico. We had Greek salad
from, uh, Greece, which was excel-
lent. :

We had Babaganouj sauce, for
dipping pita bread. Babaganouj is
Iranian, is like Greek Homus, and

is super good. We had Indian Daal °

on coconut rice. °

And finally, from Canada’s own .

First Nations people, Bannock
_ bread! And juice of all kinds. All in
all, lunch rocked.

After lunch, about 20 drama stu-

dents from Carson arrived and pre- -

sented five skits dealing with multi-
culturalism and racism in our
schools. I thought the skits were
great. They were fairly short but
.gat the point across well.

After the drama presentation,
"Chris Kelly took the stand. There
were no activities to accompany the
-speech but his accounts of true sto-

_Ties. involving racism as he was
grewing up made me think. Like:

me,’he grew up with racism all
around, watching kids being picked

on for their differences.

Aftter Kelly, we broke off into
our groups once again, and put
together short skits, like Carson’s,
but not as long or complex. The
activity was led by Sandy Mann
from Sutherland.

Then, after a coffee break, we
presented our skits to the rest of the
groups. [ thought that they were all
very good, with the slight exception
of our group’s. which was pretty
much improvised, but we managed.

To finish up the conference,
three First Nations people came in,
drums and all, and led us through a
genuine pow-wow. We all stood in
a huge circle, and did this sort of
watk-dance thing which was pretty
cool.

{ think that events like this are
great for people to attend. I sure
learned a tot about multicultural
food. But more importantly, i
learned a lot about other cultures,
differences, racism in school, and
what I can do about it.

Steve Rasmuty is 16
and is in Grade I at Arg
ondary school. He is into snow.
boarding and good music, particu
larly the guitar.

ears ald

VIOLENCE AFFECTS most teens from the
victims to the victimizers to the bystanders
who get a bad reputation in society just
because they are teens. Are you affected by

teen violence? How? If not, why not?

NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge .

THE EASTER Bunny made an early appearance at the Lonsdale recreation centre to pre-
pare for the Easter Family Brunch on Sunday, March 27, from 10 a.m. to noon. Call 987-

PLAY for details.

Bore eaom at root of violence

HAVE YOU ever walked down a
street and seen a fight break out?
Ever had a teenager walk up to you
and demand your money?

By Oliver Spissinger
ZAP! Contributor

What about feeling a gun stab
into your ribs? Have you ever been
slashed with a knife?

Ever felt like you were being
followed? Ever been surrounded by
a group of people with nowhere to
run? Ever needed to run away from
it all?

Have you ever walked down the
street and watched people get out of

your way? Do you like to instill

fear into people? Is pain to your lik-
ing? Have you ever slashed some-
one? Ever felt another human’s
blood on your hands?

Are there two sides to a coin?
Are there two sides to violence? If
there is a victim, what happened to
the victimizer? What happened to
him?

Is there anything out there that
can be done about youth violence

or is it just one big bad dream? [

hope it is.

Youth or gang violence is
power. Most teens know that when
you hurt or cripple or instill fear in
someone, it means power.

“To earn respect, power is the
way to get it!” said a former gang

member. Gangs play off what
adults do. They earn respect any-
way they can get it.

He also said that “It is foolish to

be in a gang. It hurts too many peo--

ple. It just isn’t worth it.”

As far as 1am concemed, admit-
ting that it was foolish to be in a
gang commands the ultimate in
respect. It takes more real courage
to get out of a gang than get in.

A question most people ask is,
why are there gangs out there?

What is the point? Some people
say that teens join gangs for popu-
larity and the need to belong — a
sense of brotherhood.

Is there still a point to being in a
gang? I mean that a lot of gangs
hang out in front of the 7-11 and
frighten the sales people inside.
Oooo! Big tough people!

Most people have better places
to go. You could go to a friend’s
house or out to a party or even go
and play pool for a while.

I would like to know why peo-
ple think it is so popular to hang out
in front of a convenience store.

As teens, have you looked close-
ly at our town? Do you see what is
happening around us?

Lots of sales people get nervous
when we walk into their store, they
don’t trust us anymore. Why?

{ mean, is it all that much fun to
beaut someone up, to steal. to cheat,
to lie? Adults say “All this violence
is from T.V.”

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Give me ‘a break. I believe it's
just plain old boredom.

I personally wish that someone
would open up.a teen‘ dance club,
so we teens have somewhere to go.
I say the lot of us teens should sit in
front of city hall and demand that
something be done.

Most of us would never go to a
teen drop-in centre.’ Ifa dance club
or some place of our own. were
opened, a place where we could go
to have fun, I think that some of the
teens would leave the streets.

I don't know if you understand
this but it means something to me.
This is a whole bunch of ideas
mixed into one.

I am trying to make everyone
think. I personally. don’t like to be
forced to walk through a crowd of
people, but I deal with it. Some
people can’t.

1am writing this article to make
you think. If. you don’t understand
it, or you only get a laugh out of it,
you've missed the point. I am try-
ing to make everyone understand
and start to Jook at things from-a
different point of view.

it might not explain everything,
it is just common sense, but it does
expose my feelings.

Oliver Spissinger, 17, is a
Grade 12 student at Sutherland
secondary school. He is involved
with DeMolay (a youth organiza-
tion) and would like to become a
sound technician.

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