Canada World Youth (CWY) won't be coming to the Coast this year; instead, they're headed to Vancouver Island, after some problems came up in South Africa.
"The group is already in South Africa. They started there this year and there were some health and safety concerns happening in one of the communities," said local CWY community liaison Jenny Groves, noting no specifics could be given. "There were two programs happening simultaneously and they put some new parameters in place for one of the programs and it just wasn't working, so they had to cancel the program."
The cancelled program wasn't the one destined for the Coast, but in an effort to share resources with another CWY program on the Island, the Coast contingent was rerouted.
"So essentially they decided that they wanted to keep a couple that were going on at the same time closer together, so they moved the one from the Sunshine Coast," Groves said.
The local liaison was working on getting host families set up locally in preparation for the CWY arrival next month.
"I didn't have a definitive number. We need nine and we didn't have enough, certainly. We were probably about half way there when we got word the program had been cancelled," she said.
Groves hopes CWY will look at the Coast as a potential site to run the program again next year.
"I know it's worked here really well for a long time, so I imagine they'll come back sometime in the future," she said.
CWY is a non-profit organization committed to helping young people become more informed and active global citizens.
CWY programs allow youth to experience different cultures in different communities in Canada and around the world, while teaching participants leadership and communication skills. Find out more at http://cwy-jcm.com.
