Bridgeway success story - Equilibrium Youth

We love it when former students drop in and update us on what they have been up to.  Last week, Peter Vaughn dropped by.  He's currently a student at NSCC, but he's also involved in a wonderful organization he started called Equilibrium Youth.  We asked him to share the story of his organization for our blog, and we're delighted he was able to provide us with it so quickly!

The Bridgeway team

By Peter Vaughn

Equilibrium Youth is a non-profit organization that fights against various sorts of stereotypes against teenagers and young adults. Equilibrium, by definition, is the state of equality of weights or forces. Through interpretation, this is what we plan to bring forth. Our mission is dedicated to raise public awareness on various sorts of stereotypes against teenagers and young adults, to stop youth classification through mutual understanding of each other and to explore the numerous ways of helping youth overcome obstacles. Two concepts that we work with is youth classification and mutual understanding.

Youth classification: This is a term used to describe the manner in which youth are judged; that being any form of categorization based on image, interest, upbringing, peers, age, gender, character, or personality. This usually takes place as negative stereotyping manner; however we are trying to change this way of thinking into positive thinking.

Mutual understanding: This is the ability to relate to others, by knowing who people are and how they got there. To achieve this, one must be willing to meaningfully expose themselves to things that are sometimes painful to see or hear. In doing so, individuals will start to realize who they truly are, understand their full potential and embrace a more humble life. Since many prejudice accusations towards youth are formed due to misunderstanding, making the transition from misunderstanding to exposure becomes of the utter most importance.

The message Equilibrium Youth, injunction with our two concepts is sharing with people is that judging youth needs to stop and to start helping these individuals. We have three messages for the public: The Comfort of Self, The Development of Others and The Balance of Society.

The Comfort of Self: We want youth to feel comfortable with their own personal circumstances that they can’t change. These may include living environments, physical and mental limitations, lack of resources, etc.

The Development of Others: We want youth to learn not to judge others without taking into account how that person came to be the way they are. This could refer to someone’s attitude, performance, decisions, etc.

The Balance of Society: We want youth to realize the importance of everyone around them and how their roles are so valuable to society. This pertains especially to those who have made wrong choices, do not participate in ideal conduct, etc.

Peter Vaughan is a student with a learning difference who attended Bridgeway during his Jr. High years then graduated high school from the Halifax West High School alongside Isaac Adams in June 2010. Isaac Adams is the founder of Equilibrium Youth. Currently, Peter is enrolled at NSCC as an Electronic Engineering Technician and Isaac Adams is majoring in Music at Mount Allison University.

In September 2009, Peter joined Isaac with his campaign for equality among youth. Peter goes behind the scene with his computer-based skills. He designs most of the group’s videos and is currently designing a website for the non-profit organization, which he expects to be up this spring. However Peter is not always behind the scenes, one of his ongoing projects is to teaching youth how to ballroom dance. He believes it helps to create strong communication skills between two people and the whole class and to promote other important socials skills.