Jess Boon is the Youth Engagement Strategist* at the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. She’s a recent graduate from the UBC School of Social Work and an involved youth worker, with experience working at the East Side Boxing Club and with youth in or from foster care, including finding resources for young people who are struggling to access basic necessities. Her passion and commitment to making accommodations to marginalized youth make her a valuable member of the Centre’s staff.
Jess’s role at the Centre includes researching and forming a youth advisory council, which will then inform the creation of community engagement kits and future exhibits at the centre. This process involves getting out to survey and interact with community members themselves. She also emphasizes the value she feels her work has at the Centre.
“There has been a lot of freedom to create projects that are meaningful to the centre’s development. It’s really great that the directors and staff want to involve the voices of young people in the creation of community engagement kits and the centre’s exhibitions,” she says.
Jess’s commitment to “empower and center youth voice and choice” underlies all of her work at the IRSHDC. She strives to make connections on scales both large and small in order to build a genuine and effective network. This motivation to build relationships with members of the community, and to listen and learn to people’s ideas and needs, is valuable to both the community and the Centre. Jess hopes the continual collaboration with these connections will lead to the creation of resources that have demand and are valuable to the audiences they are intended for.
Jess’s next project is a youth-driven podcast that engages youth and Elders in topics related to reconciliation, residential schools and the legacy of colonialism. She says her continuous goal is to facilitate a group where “young people feel genuinely good and proud about their involvement.”
*Jess Boon is now the Centre’s Community Outreach Coordinator as of March 2021. She was previously a Youth Engagement Strategist and consultant at the Centre.