A new play will be presented in the fall that may raise a few eyebrows, but it's vitally important for youth to know about its theme, according to Squamish Youth Centre manager Kathy Daniels.
"It's dark stuff," she said. "You can't pussyfoot around it or create a Disney version."
Auditions are being held Thursday for a play that addresses the sexual exploitation of youth, written by a group of about a dozen youth.
"It's been a real challenge for the youth writing the script and they've risen to the challenge I think," said Daniels.The play is loosely based on a true event about a couple of Squamish girls sent down to a youth safe house in North Van who end up on the street and on the verge of a career in prostitution. A group of ex-street workers working together to help youth get off the street found the two young girls and bought them a bus ticket back to Squamish.
The Squamish Youth Centre, which is affiliated with Sea to Sky Community Services, brought the issue to the Sea to Sky corridor last year with presentations of improvisational youth theatre in schools in Pemberton, Whistler and Squamish. "Each community that we presented the skits in had completely different reaction," said Daniels. "In Pemberton, I think it was a new subject for them, not that it doesn't exist, I know it does. But for them it was 'Oh, wow.' You could see them quizzically thinking about it. And then when we took it to Whistler it was like 'Why are you bringing this here, we don't have this problem at all.' But in Whistler, you definitely do. They're in denial; you can go to Whistler and get whatever you want as far as sexual favours go. And then Squamish was really interesting because we did it at Totem Hall, so we had a mixture in the audience of adults and kids, and we got a couple of letters from adults who really thanked us for doing it and thought it was an important message."
Money from the McCreary Foundation funded the expansion of the program to include the development of the script. Funded by the Ministry of Children and Family Development, the McCreary Youth Foundation aims to work in partnership with community organizations, government and the private sector to develop and fund programs that can make a difference in the lives of B.C.'s youth.
The Foundation's first undertaking is to address the issues of commercially sexually exploited youth in B.C.
Further funding from the Assistant Deputy Minister's Committee on Prostitution and Sexual Exploitation of Youth will allow for its presentation. But that won't happen until Daniels gets the McCreary seal of approval. And schools will be provided the script ahead of time so that they can assess who among the school's population should see the play.
"I'm prepared to have some schools say no," said [email protected]
