Youth Speak News

{mosimage}Being taped to the wall or having pies thrown at you by your students aren’t exactly part of the job description of being a Catholic school principal.

But for Daphne Brumwell of Sacred Heart Catholic School in Timmins, Ont., the pie-throwing and wall-taping events were all for a good cause.

{mosimage}CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - Life is full of decisions and questions about issues like faith, love, sex and human dignity. Dr. Coleen Kelly Mast saw the need for youth to have the answers to these important questions and she took up the challenge.

Mast, wife and mother of five, works as a call-in talk show host for a Catholic broadcasting station called Ave Maria radio. She has written two chastity education programs, available internationally, called Love &Life and Sex Respect, which include videos, books and training seminars. She has been a guest on Oprah, Mother Angelica Live, 60 Minutes and Geraldo, and leads conferences across North America — most recently a women’s conference on hope and the culture of death in Charlottetown.

{mosimage}SAINT JOHN, N.B. - Preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation doesn’t usually mean joining 600 other youth for a day of talks and a walking pilgrimage through city streets.

But in Saint John, that is exactly what students did, converging at St. Malachy’s High School from towns across the diocese.

“My brothers, what use is it for a man to say he has faith when he does nothing to show it? Can that faith save him? Suppose a brother or a sister is in rags with not enough food for the day, and one of you says, ‘Good luck to you, keep yourselves warm, and have plenty to eat,’ but does nothing to supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So with faith; if it does not lead to action, it is in itself a lifeless thing.” (James 2:14-17)

I thought this passage from the Bible was a good reminder of our call to action as Christians during these tough economic times as we approach the Christmas season.

TORONTO - The children of Attawapiskat, Ont., have no school and attend classes in portables where the doors sometimes freeze shut, students wear their winter jackets to class and mice run over their lunches. The dropouts in this small community near James Bay begin as early as Grade 4.

“But I want to also tell you about the determination in our community to build a better world,” grade-school student Shannen Koostachin told a crowd of about 450 students and teachers from Toronto Catholic schools Nov. 26.

“George Bush is so stupid!” remarked one of my friends seated at her desk.

“I know,” agreed another, “he makes even Steven Harper look intelligent!”

{mosimage}OTTAWA  - Some call it an act of charity while others call it an act of compassion. But for Fr. David Shulist, S.J., Catholic chaplain at Carleton University in Ottawa, travelling to Latin America — to learn from the locals and help in whatever ways he and his students can — is an act of being human.

Shulist is the program director of the mission project Global Connections, an initiative run by Catholic chaplains in Canada to educate students about worldly conditions through trips to developing countries.

{mosimage}VICTORIA, B.C. - After a months-long battle and three hearings, Youth Protecting Youth (YPY) is now part of a long list of pro-life clubs that has been denied funding — this time by the University of Victoria Student Society.

YPY joins a list of “contested” clubs, as the Canadian Federation of Students’ support for student governments against “anti-choice” clubs has resulted in the loss of status or funding for student pro-life groups at Capilano College, the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Lakehead University and Carleton University over the past year

I had just finished a late shift at work. I put on my sweater, coat and scarf and left the building. It was really cold — the kind of chill that you can feel wrap around the very edges of any exposed skin. I walked quickly, hoping to secure a warm seat on the bus. As I approached the bus stop, someone stopped me. “Mon grand, as-tu deux pieces t’as pourrais me donner?” I stared into the weathered face of the man who was asking me for money. He was not dressed for the weather. A baseball cap and a thin windbreaker were all the protection he had for the cold night.

{mosimage}As the economic crisis hits the developed world, it’s easy to forget that other countries continue to struggle with poverty.

But Marion Sandilands, Asia program officer of CHF, formerly Canadian Hunger Foundation, says it’s just as important to remember that a billion people live on one dollar a day.