Talk To Us Vancouver

What advice would you give to the youth who are struggling to find happiness?

Well, the only advice I give to youth is they have to get up everyday and they have to bear themselves by looking at their future. Today, there’s a lot of people that they live a life so that they’re lazy; they live online, they shop online, and they don’t get up and actually do the actual work. Go out, and actually do the work, I work for a megaphone magazine, and I love megaphone because right now I’m going to Car Free Day on Denman, and it reminds us that you have to get up and actually do the job because people can act with people. You have to keep a community and culture alive by getting out and doing the job. It’s easy to go make money online, it’s a lot harder if you got up by yourself.

As a young person, do it yourself because it’s got a lot of social challenges, and with all the social crises that we face in our neighbourhood, with substance abuse, people that are paying to live to survive, you’ve got to remember that for a young person right now you can go rent a one bedroom because the reason you can’t rent a one bedroom is because it asked me for $700. Where are you going to get $700 from? And then you have to pay for groceries, and then you have to get up to go to work, and what happens if you lose your job? Now, you’re homeless and this is the biggest problem.

We need what they call stability; we need to focus on making the new generation, which is your generation, to get up, uplift yourself, and make that big difference, and that’s what really counts. At the end of day, because remember, always remember, that you have to get up, focus on your dream, and you will do good in your dream because you can either be what: right now, if I ask you, they’ve got coordinator, manager, executive director, which job would you like? Coordinator means that you help people out and make sure they show up. Operational manager means that you run your staff. Executive director means that you are boss. So which one would you choose?

I also do videos for the Downtown Eastside. We try and make changes because we want the young generation to get up, and they got to learn that this is the ropes. This is not a joke: if you win, you win, if you lose, you lose. And down here in Vancouver, you win or lose, there’s no in between. There’s no time out. It’s a one-way ticket.

Posted October 14, 2023
Interviewed September 24, 2023
Downtown, Vancouver