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The Alberta Trade Centre is a unique building where a number of youth services have
been centralized into one convenient location for Calgary’s young people. However,
bringing this many youth into a single space has also caused a rift between some of
the adults in the building and the young people accessing services.
“I was asked to improve relationships because some of the adults were forming
negative impressions about the youth they were tasked with helping,” says Monica
Wong, a fourth-year social work student, who is focusing her degree on youth in
communities. “I really enjoyed working with the young people on this project. It reminded
me how rewarding it is to help influence who they will become.”
Wong helped lead a process that encouraged young people to identify the problems they
felt were occurring and accept responsibility for solving these issues. For example,
during a brainstorming session, Wong discovered the young people wanted to change
the attitudes of the adults in the building while increasing the general awareness of
youth about the services available.
In this unique project, Wong worked with several partnering organizations to lead the
young people through a creative process that resulted in the youth creating a mural
composed of puzzle pieces that the youth and adults painted together. The puzzle idea
was chosen because it represented the agencies and the youth they were serving: each
piece is unique but by working together they can achieve something great. To celebrate
the final piece of art and to help advertise the youth services at Alberta Trade Centre,
the mural was hung on the outside of a prominent city building.
“This mural was a good first step in building relationships between the youth and adults
because it helped everyone learn more about each other and move past any negative
impressions they may have had,” says Wong. ”As people painted side by side, they got
to know each other and it wasn’t long before you could see smiles on everyone’s faces,
which certainly made the young people stand a little taller. This example confirmed my
belief that if you help a young person, you really help the entire community.”
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