VIRSA Youth Forum

January 18, 2006

Regarding: Invite for VIRSA Youth Forum

VIRSA YOUTH FORUM – Over 100  Youth to Attend

I am writing to extend an invitation to VIRSA’s first Youth Forum to be held at Tamanawis High School (12600-66Avenue) on January 26th from 6 pm to 9 pm in Surrey.  

The objective of the forum will be to retrieve some valuable information from the youth on drugs, gang violence, cultural conflict, and any other issues affecting them. This information will ultimately be used to draw conclusions on how to improve our resources and develop programs to reach our youth more effectively.

The event will include an intense visual presentation providing facts and statistics related to youth issues and gang violence, a brief introduction of the VIRSA Mentorship Program, followed by forum in different rooms. Each room will consist of 10-15 youth, in which they will discuss their feelings and views regarding different issues in our community. The discussion groups will range from a mix of grades 8-12, to an only girls discussion, an only boys discussion, an only grade 8/9 group, only grade 10, and only grade 11/12 (the latter 3 will be of both genders). Then lastly, we have a teachers/adults discussion going on as well. The forum will end with a discussion including all the youth (100-120) and a short annotation.

Itinerary:
5:30-6:00pm – Doors open & Registration
6:00-6:30 – Slideshow and pictures of gang slain members
6:30-7:00 – Introduction of VIRSA Mentorship Program and Facts/Stats
7:00–8:30 – Youth Forum
8:30 – 9:00 – Close with positive Annotation

VIRSA is a community based, non-profit organization governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. VIRSA was formed in December 2002 by members of the Sikh community concerned about the escalating level of violence among Indo-Canadian youth.

If you would like to get more information on VIRSA programs, please visit our website at www.virsa.ca.