The Kindersley Youth Committee has won a third place Saskatchewan Municipal Award for revitalizing youth engagement and other reasons. The 2017 committee is (back row, left to right) Brianna McBride, Jocelyn Cannon, Jace Borgal, Shayla Olafson and Kathryn Sawatzky (vice-chairperson), and (front row, left to right) Joshua Enns-Wind, Jillian McArthur, Tessa Sautner (chairperson) and Colton Leismeister.
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
The Town of Kindersley has earned yet another Saskatchewan Municipal Award (SMA) for its ongoing engagement of local students with the Kindersley Youth Committee.
Each year, the SMA program presents awards to three municipalities to celebrate their excellent and innovative practices. There is also an award for regional co-operation, so there are four awards handed out through the program on an annual basis.
The SMA program is a partnership between the urban and rural municipal and administrator associations in Saskatchewan and the ministry of government relations. The SMA program aims to share knowledge among municipalities through best practices and to promote regional co-operation between urban and rural partners.
The first-place award went to the City of Swift Current for a Downtown Market Square, an initiative to revitalize the downtown core to engage businesses, artisans, farmers and various municipal sectors. Second place award went to the Town of Carrot River and RM of Moose Range for its Saskatchewan’s Outback: Community Branding Campaign, an initiative to develop a community brand to retain and encourage tourism business.
Kindersley won the third place award for its initiative to establish a youth committee program to revitalize youth engagement, increase the contributions of the youth and to support an intergenerational connection.
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Michelle McMillan, the town’s manager of culture and heritage, is the co-ordinator for the youth committee. She said the youth committee program is, in essence, a new program inspired by the Kindersley Youth Council.
The co-ordinator didn’t work for the town when the youth council won its SMA in 2011. The final year for the youth council was 2015, when the five members worked with McMillan to help develop the youth committee, a change that provided a less formal structure for the members.
Other changes to the program opened up the range of ages for members. It also allowed the group to have more freedom to move within the committee structure. Instead of a mayor and deputy mayor in the council, the committee has a chairperson and a vice-chairperson. Members also have other roles such as treasurer.
McMillan said instead of cancelling the youth engagement program or make cuts to the program, it was decided to shut down the council and start up the committee. The committee operates under its own unique terms of Rreference, she said.
Aspects of the new program were submitted with the SMA application. McMillan said it took into account a program that was not working and used the knowledge to inspire the new program. She noted that another part of the application focused on how the council members played a key role in the changes.
“The other major factor in the application was highlighting youth engagement and the fact that it wasn’t solely administration or council members, as adults, who designed a program for youth to adhere to,” she said, recognizing the process. “It was letting the youth assess the old program to determine what was not going to work moving into a new program, and letting them produce a new structure.”
Accepting the youth voice in the community and letting youth spearhead the process has been recognized by the SMA’s selection committee, McMillan noted. She said the committee members have developed a new sense of motivation and inspiration as a result of the changes, and it’s what she has noticed and enjoyed most while working with the group.
The youth council could have a maximum of seven members and the program was down to four members at one time. The second edition of the youth committee saw an increase in members with nine. The expanded interest could be attributed to the changes, McMillan said.
She said the committee has a budget of about $7,500 for its programs and initiatives. The funding is approved as part of the town’s operating budgets. The town also provides administrative support to the committee.
Tessa Sautner, chairperson for the 2017 youth committee, has been a member of the committee for two years, since it was established in 2016. She said the committee had no idea it could win an award, so it’s a nice surprise.
“I think everybody was kind of surprised initially,” she said. She said people don’t hear much about the municipal awards and she had never heard about them before. “We were all very excited that something that we do because we love doing it got the recognition of something so much bigger.”
Members of the previous council and current committee engage other youth in the community through its programs and initiatives, but also by going into classrooms to encourage peers to consider getting involved with the program. An application process is held each year.
Sautner said she could recall the exact subject she was learning when the committee members engaged her class. She was in an accounting program and it was pointed out to her that she could learn more about accounting by joining the committee.
The committee has to work within its budget and plan for its programs and initiatives. The committee does a movie in the park each year or a drive-in movie. Sautner said she was very interested and filled out an application for the program as soon as possible.
She noted that she was excited about the opportunity to gain some skills through the program. She said she believes the new structure to the committee has made the program more approachable to new members because it’s less rigid. The members enjoy engaging other youth and helping out in the community, she added.
Mayor Rod Perkins said he hopes the program helps to create future community leaders, and even encourages the youth committee members to consider sitting on municipal councils. He said council would continue to support the program as long as interest exists.
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