Spotlight on...Youth and Literacy

Youth Community Action (cont'd)

Anita Chan

Anita Chan, 18, is a first year arts student at UBC. She joined YCA after hearing about it from her sister, May, who will graduate this year from the School of Library Archival, and Information Studies at UBC and is now our Resource Centre librarian.

Anita is our Resource Centre and Projects assistant. Like the other YCA students, her work experience has included a bit of everything. She has helped with Family Literacy Week, assisted with registration at the Family Literacy Day Breakfast, assembled information kits, mailed resources, entered data and done Internet research, and learned about library cataloging. Jean describes Anita as “very willing, cheerful and efficient.” Anita says the YCA program “really opens doors — to things you haven’t thought about before.” Anita’s goal “is to get into children’s literature — as an illlustrator, perhaps.”

Maggie Van Luven

Maggie Van Luven has been with us since February this year. Maggie has worked closely with our Office Administrator, Marj Froemgen, in the ongoing (and seemingly never-ending) work of updating our database. Maggie, 24, is a second year student in the Arts Faculty at UBC. This is the first opportunity she has had in her post-secondary studies to access this kind of support.

Maggie has spent hours in front of the computer “correlating data, chasing and maintaining information … and making sure it’s all correct.” She says her experience at Literacy BC “has taught me patience — and good posture.” Her input has also been helpful with the design of the database. The transfer of data from one program to another has been “a huge undertaking, “ says Jean, “and Maggie has been a real boon to us. Maggie is efficient, accurate, thorough, friendly and a good problem-solver.”

Maggie says the value of Youth Community Action for her is that, “It provides an opening for me to look at all the avenues that are available to me to do what I might like — and an opportunity to figure out if I like doing a certain thing. Adaptability — that’s one thing I’ve learned in this program..” For now, her future direction is open — “maybe literacy, or education in some way, or library resource work.”

Executive Director Linda Mitchell says Literacy BC is very pleased to have been part of the program. “We’re about encouraging learning and training,” says Linda, “so it is important that we be involved in this program. For the student, the value is in gaining hands-on experience. It’s beyond volunteering. This is a job.” Jean agrees. “It takes a lot to make a program like this work,” she says, “but it’s been very rewarding.”

Students and potential host agencies can visit the YCA website through the MAETT at www.youth.gov.bc.ca