Young people (30 years and younger) don’t have a lot of options for working here in the Cowichan Valley. Forestry has scaled down recently, we don’t have any major industries here, we don’t build cars here, we aren’t a technology centre, movies don’t get made here, tourism is only really a summer thing, so what are young people supposed to do about this?

For starters, you could come to our workshop, Our Jobs! Our Future! We will be talking about Community Economic Development (CED), how you can get started in CED and meet some interesting people who are in similar situations as you. We are trying to change young people’s employment expectations, don’t just work for some company because they pay you, choose something that is aligned with your value system and find an opportunity to do what you want to do, servicing/selling to the people you want to sell to, doing something you really believe in.

As a young person myself, I have found it hard to find a career that I love, I used to work in forestry, but now I feel like there are other areas that would be a better fit for myself and values. Working for Cowichan Green Community has been great, I work in food security, trying to make farms more viable and finding innovative ways to reduce waste and feeding people at the same time. CGC is not only aligned with my values, it is also a great place to work, but non-profits are not going to be the force that employs young people in the Cowichan Valley. We need something more, something new.

I believe that communities are best able to find solutions to problems in their communities. Getting a group of young in the same room talking about opportunities and solutions has the potential to start something amazing. Maybe it’s a small business, maybe it’s co-op, maybe it’s new service, who knows what will happen. Today, we the youth, have a whole bunch of challenges ahead of us, an economy build on oil, industries that extract resources, a more then ever fragile environment and the rising cost of everything (especially the driving force of the North American Economy, oil). We can’t continue on this we way, we all know this isn’t sustainable, so let’s build a community based solution, lets start some real Community Economic Development, lets build community.