Love Yourself, Express Yourself, Be Yourself
Youth in care are treated differently. We face prejudices, stigmas, and stereotypes that keep us in a box. There are many forms of identity that make us who we are, including cultural identity, religion, sexuality.
The youth feel that the community needs to support them to pursue our interests so that we can figure out our personality, and our own identity. We are separated from our families, so where do we 'fit in'? Everyone in the Community Action Project wants people to stop labeling them as “A youth in care” and we would like to see more acceptance and understanding of what it means to be a youth in care. The time is now to speak up so that our voices can be heard. We hope with our video project that we worked so hard on once we show it to our foster parents, social workers, and teachers that we can be ourselves no matter if we are in care.
Voices Manitoba’s Youth in Care Network works with youth in and from care ages 12-30. We support, encourage, and empower one another. One of the many things we do at the network is to let youth know about their rights to: be healthy, be heard, be safe, and be yourself and through our message we will share what it means to Express yourself, Love yourself, and Be yourself as it is their right to be heard.