Every second year, the Canadian Race Relation Foundation awards organizations and individuals across the country for their work furthering values like inclusivity and equality among Canadian citizens.
This year, BYTE received an Honourable Mention award in the youth category for our MOVE! Youth Ending Violence program. MOVE! is an intensive multi-session workshop intended to help youth identify and combat instances of violence in their own lives. It covers topics like bystander intervention, gender stereotyping, leadership, and healthy relationships.
MOVE! was originally a program offered by the Women’s Directorate designed to engage social justice-minded youth in topics relating to gender-based violence. Since then, BYTE has taken the program and changed it so that MOVE! covers a broad spectrum of anti-violence topics and targets participants who are more likely to have seen or experienced violence in their own lives. We’ve received great feedback from participants who said that MOVE! helped them identify and prevent violence, prejudice and abuse.
In 2014, thanks to the generous support of United Way, BYTE is offering more MOVE! sessions this winter—one in Whitehorse and one in Haines Junction, and we’re honoured to receive the award right before we kick off the Whitehorse MOVE! sessions this month.
“BYTE is incredibly proud of this program and all that it has achieved to date,†says BYTE’s Executive Director Chris Rider. “The recognition from Canadian Race Relations Foundation acknowledges some of the amazing work done by our team and by all of the youth who have participated in the program.â€
This year’s MOVE! program will take place in Whitehorse between November 18 and December 2nd, and in Haines Junction at a to-be-determined date.
You can read more about the MOVE! i>Youth Ending Violence program here. If you’d like to find out more about this year’s MOVE! program, contact Whitehorse Outreach Coordinator Angela at whitehorse@www.yukonyouth.com .
