By Brigette Choiselat
A new youth magazine will launch its first issue on Oct. 18 as part of a new entrepreneurial program in Centretown.
Written and produced by 11 young adults, Friction focuses on issues that are considered important for today’s youth between the ages of 14 and 24.
The first issue includes stories on homelessness, employment, health care and landlord/tenant rights, as well as some fiction and entertainment.
“It’s very youth driven. We’ve tried to give them as much free reign with how they feel a magazine for them should be produced,” says Larry Finn, one of the program’s three co-ordinators.
Youth have been involved in every aspect of the magazine’s production — from writing, editing and photography, to selling advertisements and organizing the layout of the final product.
The program is designed to give unemployed and out-of-school youth real-life work experience during a six- month period. The youth were chosen not for their experience but for their enthusiasm for the job.
“This is a program that hopefully will inspire them onto further education or a better job,” says Finn. “They’ve done amazingly well. It (the magazine) has come from what we thought would be a newsletter to a full-blown magazine.”
Adam Thomlison, 20, says he’s confident that being involved in the magazine will help him find a career.
He says that most of his experience has been through recreational activities — something employers wouldn’t normally look at.
“This has been a really good chance to have a real job though which I can get experience, where normally you can’t get a real job without experience,” he says.
He adds that working at the magazine has made him decide to return to school – not in the music field he was originally considering, but instead to study journalism.
Michael Sacco, 23, says that the program has helped him realize his potential in communications and has given him a chance to improve his writing.
“It’s really good for learning essential skills,” he says. “My grammar is getting better, my technique and style are better … my computer skills are infinitely better. That’s my biggest improvement.”
The idea for a magazine was created and proposed by The Door/La Porte, a youth drop-in centre on Somerset Street West, using a $137,712 grant from Human Resources Development Canada. According to Finn, this money has been put toward the salaries for the co-ordinators and participants as well as advertising, printing and the equipment that was needed to produce the magazine.
This includes four new computers, three digital cameras, a scanner and two printers – all of which will be donated to The Door/La Porte when the program is complete.
While the program’s original mandate was to produce one issue, the Friction team decided instead to produce three issues, so the youth can keep improving on their work from issue to issue.
While the first edition is 40 pages long with 20,000 issues being distributed in the Ottawa region, the team expects these numbers to rise significantly for the next two issues.