Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 26th, 2015

[Patricia Pelton]

I'll give it a go. I think Mary Anne will fill in, certainly regarding specific programming.

In terms of working in a foreign culture, the whole basis for how we work internationally is with partners. We respect our partners, and we don't do anything to the partners. We've tried to get past that old colonial feel and work with our partners in terms of the reality of the cultural context in which they're working and the ways in which we can take small steps.

In terms of best practices, I will tell you that all of our local YMCAs that have international partnerships, which is almost all of them, always say that they get more from the partnership than what they give in terms of the relationship.

For specifics, I'll pass it over to Mary Anne.

[Mary Anne Roche]

As Patricia was saying, the fact that the YMCAs are led and owned locally is a critical factor for us. When we're dealing with these kinds of issues, for people or cultures to change requires a level of trust. The leadership, and the people leading change, need to be members of their own community, where there's already trust and a feeling that there's an understanding of the realities of that particular community.

In terms of best practices and learnings, we've seen great success, as have many other organizations, with youth exchanges.

This allows me to make a comment to you, Ms. Brown. We had a situation where we had a young person from a YMCA who came to a youth exchange program in Canada that was partially funded by the federal government, where he learned and was exposed to Canadian culture and Canadian values, and approaches to how to work with children. After several weeks in Canada, he gave unsolicited testimony in which he said, “I have learned not to hurt the children through those practices like caning. I have learned that there are alternative ways of working with children to engage them in their school work.“ That was very powerful testimony for anyone who was in that room.

The value of one-to-one conversation and dialogue-sharing cannot be underestimated, particularly in youth exchanges, where people are forming their understanding of different cultures. Through that dialogue, you have a growing sense that perhaps there are different ways of approaching things. We have had our learnings in Canada as well, through those exchanges with other countries.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have. We're going to start the third round. I think we have time for one more round.

We're going to start with Mr. Goldring for five minutes.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank everyone for appearing here today.

My comment would be, I suppose, to Ms. Stevenson. It is with regard to what my colleague was talking about: the Convention on the Rights of the Child. My first comment is that it's pretty well universally accepted and certainly well promoted here in Canada.

I have difficulty with article 38. Article 1 says that you're a child if you're under the age of 18; article 38 says, except, if you get recruited into a military, you can be 15. I have difficulty with that, and I would hope that they would rewrite it. I understand they've covered that with some recent protocols but not all countries have accepted the protocols.

Would that not an apt place—and maybe it is there already and I've just forgotten about it—to add for the right of a child to be certified at birth? It seems to me that would be a very important thing to do. Perhaps you could comment on whether child marriage or female genital mutilation is covered in that document. Would that not be an apt document to clarify some of these issues, and put it on record? As I said, it's pretty universally accepted as a document that's followed in most countries.

Could you comment on that, Ms. Stevenson?

[Sarah Stevenson]

Yes, thank you very much.

As you mentioned, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely recognized and ratified document we have. I am pleased to say that recently Somalia has also signed on to the document, so it has become even more ratified. We do have some optional protocols that were written after the original convention was drafted. The reason for that is that it is significantly easier to draft and sign on to optional protocols than to revise the convention itself. That's why that's been happening. Among the optional protocols, there is one on child soldiers, which does update the documents, as you mentioned. The convention itself also looks at issues of child marriage, etc., so there are options within the convention to deal with this language.

One of the challenges that we have with all of these conventions is that states have the option to have reservations on certain articles, and that's where, hopefully, within the UN system and across bilateral negotiations, there can be conversations in terms of encouraging states not to have certain reservations about different articles within the convention.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

The written version that we get in the booklet that is passed around to all schools still has the original wording in article 38, saying that a child can be taken into the military at the age of 15. I would think that if they could put out an official publication that would make note of the protocols and include them, we could have the confidence of knowing when we read it that those have been attended to.

[Sarah Stevenson]

That certainly is something that I can bring to my colleagues at UNICEF and make a recommendation to them in terms of carrying that forward.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have one minute, Mr. Schellenberger. What we don't get to, you can do in the next round.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

To the ladies from the YMCA, you mentioned earlier that you worked with child soldiers.

How have your programs worked with these child soldiers after their stint?

[Mary Anne Roche]

The Sierra Leone YMCA has done phenomenal work, and there is a truth and reconciliation process within that country. Through YMCA's involvement, they were able, after the conflict ended in 2002 or so, to engage child soldiers into their programming, which was challenging, to such an extent that many of those soldiers were able to return to their families and to their communities. Through the experience of being with others, learning to trust adults, having opportunities to be children and play again, and talking a little bit about their experiences, through that kind of group process and individual attention, some healing is able to take place, and child soldiers are able to move on with their lives. It's very difficult and inspiring work that my colleagues are doing in those communities, for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Gary, we'll come back to you.

We're going to go over to Madam Laverdière for five minutes.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to go back to Ms. Stevenson.

What do you see as the relationship between armed conflict, failed state, state fragility, and disaster, and the prevalence of forced marriage? I don't know why I'm asking all my questions in English today, but anyhow, here it is.

[Sarah Stevenson]

Thank you very much.

We've seen over time that fragile states and situations of both war and internal conflicts within countries are where we are going to see increased prevalence of children affected by that, both as soldiers and as children affected by the conflict itself beyond the role of just being a soldier, which is, on all sides, horrendous for these children to have to go through.

It's been interesting to note that during the recent Ebola crisis the prevalence of FGM/C has actually gone down, and that's one of the reasons why we are calling for an interagency review—including our civil society colleagues, ChildFund being one of them—of the Ebola response to see what are the lessons that we can learn in terms of some of the issues that have come up from that. Since we're seeing a reduction in FGM/C, has there also been a reduction, for example, in child marriage taking place during this crisis? Those are some of the questions that we would like to see answered by an interagency review. That's something that, again, would be great to see countries pushing for as well, in terms of how to carry this forward.

Thank you.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

More generally, on the overall issue of child, forced, and early marriage—I'm sorry I never say that in the right order, but I covered all the bases, I think—on this general issue, what do you see as the way forward, the next steps?

[Sarah Stevenson]

The next step, from the lens I have while sitting here in New York and the conversations taking place currently within the next 15-year development agenda, is going to be how do we ensure that the target we currently have, which is looking at child, early, and forced marriage, is retained within the negotiations? That's a place where we're hoping Canada can continue to be a champion in terms of safeguarding that target. Without that target in 2016, there's always going to be the potential that it won't get the focus it deserves and requires within countries. That's because it not only is affected by national budgets and priorities within national budgets, but also, as this committee is well aware, in terms of overseas development assistance.

Within all of these issues affecting violence against girls and boys, it's how we ensure the targets that we have are preserved, and how, as Mr. Lukowski was saying, we ensure that within a global partnership on violence against children, these are all issues included within that as a main priority.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Schellenberger, did you have any final questions?

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Sure. Thank you.

Youth unemployment has been mentioned at different times here today, and how important it is that these youths have some jobs.

You've all talked about different programs to educate people, and various programs that are peer-to-peer or whatever. If one was to pass one of these programs, you came out and you passed it, and there are still no jobs there, is there not a big vacuum that has to be filled?

I say this because in my riding of Perth—Wellington I have what is known as the Stratford Festival. The Stratford Festival has endeavoured, along with the Government of Canada and in the Americas, in Suchitoto, El Salvador.... Again, Suchitoto is not a big town, but it just had so much violence and gangs. What the theatre did is it went into partnership with the town, and with some government support, to create a theatre company, not just a bunch of actors but a whole company. In that company they need electricians, they need carpenters to make sets, they have lighting people, they have people making costumes, they teach sewing, they do all of those things, and they also act. They teach actors. They go through the whole thing.

They've worked with the street kids. They brought them in. Right now there's a lineup of people who want to belong there. What they do is they go in and they're taught how to be carpenters, how to be electricians, how to be whatever. After a year or two they have some experience, and they can go out into their community and work in that community doing those jobs. They are then entrepreneurs. Whether they're getting a nickel an hour or whatever, they're out making money. They're doing something. They get a job when they come out of this.

Maybe it's only a statement I'm making here today, but I think with something like that, if you can partner with someone who can give those skills to those people for when they come out of there, maybe the unemployment rate would come down.

Could any of you comment on what I've just said?

[Mary Anne Roche]

Absolutely, entrepreneurialism is one of the potential solutions. I think all of our programs are also helping provide young people with those particular skills. The larger challenge is to find some of that decent work. The fact that there's a specific target in the SDGs related to taking a new step forward in developing a global strategy for jobs is very important and one that we hope will eventually make a difference.

It's a great story you've shared with us, though.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Are there any comments?

[Patricia Pelton]

If I could just say, in terms of being on the ground and trying to ensure employability and not underemployability, I was in the West Bank with the YMCA a couple of years ago, and it had a large vocational training facility. I say “large facility” because it's large in space, but poorly equipped. In Canadian terms, we would say that the equipment was not enough. What amazed us was all the training that did go on and how prepared the youth came out in their various fields. There was some computer training and some mechanical training, etc.

What the school did very clearly was to work with the communities to try to ensure placements for apprenticeships. As we do here, they had that model, and they were very proud to share with us the relatively high rate of employability of their students. Training just isn't enough; we know even in Canada that being underemployed just isn't good enough either.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mark, do you have a final comment?

[Mark Lukowski]

I could share with you about a program that we worked on in Ethiopia called youth-headed household. It was designed for youths who had basically lost both of their parents to AIDS. We implemented a 10-week training program for the youths who were between 17 and 20. The youths were selected. They were the oldest in their family, and they had two or three siblings. After the training was completed, through capital that was provided by a generous donor, we provided some start-up funding so that each of these folks set up a small business.

One of the youths who participated in this program developed wheelbarrows because he realized that people needed something to move their goods around from their markets to home. He painted every wheelbarrow blue. As you walked around the community, you thought of this youth and our program because every blue wheelbarrow in his town was because of the program.

The exciting thing about this is that not only did this youth have training through the training program, he had sole start-up capital, and he also had a mentor. He met with a mentor on a regular basis, who was a seasoned businessperson in the community, to help him expand his business. That's one of many examples of how we work to try to get youth to create employment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

To our witnesses today, thank you very much for your time and your insight on this very important topic.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.