When the Covid-19 pandemic cancelled the 2020 Police and Youth Engagement Program (PYEP), the program was redesigned to provide supports to ethnocultural youth during an exceptionally challenging summer.

 

Zamzam, who was a youth leader with PYEP in 2019, is a second-year social work student and one of ten youths hired to provide direct supports in their communities.

 

“I heard about the Youth Navigator program from my mom and Ali,” she said. “It’s my second year working with REACH in summer programs and I really enjoy my time working with them.”

 

“I was supporting youth aged 13 to 18 the Somali community, but I do it with all the communities,” said Zamzam.

 

“I come from the Somali community, so I typically work with them, but I do also have my work with the Sudanese community and all the other communities that we’re working with.”

 

Zamzam worked to connect with youth at risk of falling into negative behaviours by helping them work on communication skills with their parents and discussing how to make positive choices.

 

“Sometimes the challenges are the kids are ending up in gang-related activities because they’re growing up in a bad area and they just become a product of their environment,” she said.

 

“Another one would be the parents and the youth have different understandings in life. The parents don’t agree with them because the kids are looking at it from a western point of view, so they often clash.”

 

Zamzam would help them navigate these situations through empathy and compassion.

 

“Usually what I do is, with the youth having hard time seeing eye-to-eye with their parents, I tell them to look at it from parents’ point of view. Try to understand what their parents trying to get across and try to get their point across without making it a big argument,” she said. “Take it one step at a time.”

 

The work faced extra barriers because of the safety measures in place during a pandemic.

 

“There were some challenges doing this work during a pandemic, because a lot of the time youth won’t pick up their phones or want to reach out and you’re just going to have to text more often and try to get them to be a little more pro-active,” she said. “Doing this in real life would be a lot easier.”

 

However, traversing these barriers was well worth the effort.

 

“The most meaningful exchange I had was taking these two girls out who haven’t really been out during this whole Covid situation. Ever since school was out, they’ve just been cooped up at home. They tell me their concerns and they can’t leave home. They have to rely on their parents to take them places, but parents are older and on CERB. So I offered to take them out for a walk or to get ice cream,” she said.

 

“I picked them up on a Thursday to get ice cream and really enjoyed their time. I think that’s very valuable because being cooped up is not good for your mental health, physical health or emotional well-being. Being able to go outside and get fresh air is very important.”