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Today's youth are tomorrow's future

Editor's note: Chatelech Secondary School Grade 12 graduate Brooke Cooney was chosen as Coast Reporter's entry in this year's British Columbia and Yukon Community Newspaper Association student scholarship essay.

Editor's note: Chatelech Secondary School Grade 12 graduate Brooke Cooney was chosen as Coast Reporter's entry in this year's British Columbia and Yukon Community Newspaper Association student scholarship essay. Students were asked to submit their essay answering the question: How could your local paper partner with the youth in your community to make a positive difference? Below is Brooke's chosen essay.

All teenagers need to learn how to be involved in their community, and therefore, including youth in the community paper is valuable because it creates a feeling of connection and involvement to their town.

There are many different ways in which Coast Reporter, a community paper in the town of Sechelt, can partner with youth to make a positive difference. This could be achieved through a youth section in the paper, which includes some of the following ideas.

There are several features that could be added to the paper. One feature could be a youth written column that tackles teen topics such as health, self-esteem, technology and school. An alternative would be to have an "ask" column where teenagers could anonymously input their questions. A health professional, counsellor or other qualified person could answer some of these questions every month.

There are many hard-working teenagers in the community who are very involved in Sechelt. A "teen of the month" article could also be introduced to inspire readers with a feature on these volunteers, leaders and athletes.

Coast Reporter could also create a section designed specifically for youth activities. This section could include sport activities such as upcoming local and provincial school tournaments and seminars. There could also be a listing on information for joining different programs such as dance, yoga, softball, hockey and kick boxing. An important tool in this section would be to expand on the existing Chatelech, Pender and Elphinstone secondary schools bulletin boards every month with school information including dates of Pro-D days, vacations, report cards, parent-teacher nights and community events of interest to teenagers. Making it easy for youth to be involved in extra-curriculum activities would be very positive for Sechelt.

The newspaper classifieds are a great resource, and a student-based classified section would make it easy for students to get involved. Under a student-classified section, teenagers could sell text books, tutoring services, sports gear, high-end calculators, used phones, cameras and more. Job listings could also be posted. The student section in the paper could also feature local advertisements geared towards youth, such as sales at popular clothing stores, movie theatres, fast-food restaurants, beauty salons and gaming stores. Through the advertisements, both the newspaper and businesses will benefit.

Getting youth involved in the community paper is a valuable opportunity, and with these suggestions, youth will treat their paper as both a valuable resource and community connection. A couple of pages dedicated to the youth would be a great addition to our community paper and a positive addition to our town.