Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 3, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press March 1981 pages 1728 Diana Speer is just of of Many a pm note on her 1 line project adventure opens new horizons to youngsters trapped in despair and delinquency by Ted Allan it happens just after final As scores of children press noisily to the exit from the schools Cavern open area classroom base the suddenly draw Back into a gaping a a dark has seized a boy by the holding him at arms the mans voice is a shout com pressed into a parody of Why did you kick that boy he shaking the boy in inadvertent do you think its acceptable to just kick someone is that it in asking do you think you can kick someone when you feel like it answer the questions Are Blud the boy is fighting he tries to break teacher and boy its a moment so pure and appalling that it could be an elemental Law of nature playing itself pc 6 project adventure incorporated is an idea whose time has come and by tangled definition a non Cor Earea social it works with juvenile offend ers and problem including the boy from the West end but its a battling of the devalued expansionist social welfare philosophies of the Early 70s when self help was often an acceptable euphemism for sucking at the Public project adventure a polished Stone on the Beach of acute traded restraint functions effectively and radically in a time when social service agencies Are As cautious As Dia mond founded in 1976 on a Federal local employment assistance program it culls its workers from the intercity walking they Are tested under fire in counsel delinquent juveniles from eight to there Are two staff six youth four trainees and 30 children 20 referred from childrens Aid society of 10 from provincial probation its annual operational costs of 000 Are met by per diem expenses paid by probation services and the leap services to childrens Aid Are the referrals include sniffers and joyrides and Van and youngsters increasingly disabled by anger and indefinable part of the equation that is both project adventures distinction and peril is that the though is they Are people who have come from where they Are trying to prevent the children from we have dual says Allyn the projects executive direct the people like me who have screwed up and want to do something about it Are trained in guidance skills and Given a sense of purpose and not to mention a the children Are coun selled and nourished by people who understand their difficulties from exp theres no in her own sardonic spent 10 years on the Street practising to be a full time Alco its nothing to be proud of Damn its part of my life and it can be this is the rare Opportunity for each of us on staff to use the negative aspects of our lives its the Basic reason for project Advent sociologically its called the help Erther apy principle and has plenty of precedent and Little lingering in project adventures its a set of reverse image requisites the initial group of project staff was selected by applying the combined criteria of 1 chronic employment Dif 2 indigenous to the cites Core 3 alcohol or other drug 4 previous involvement with the an Independent commissioned by the projects Board of direct adds a caveat the High attrition rate among this initial group suggests that selecting workers with several serious or particularly chronic prob lems is to it it there Are a couple of Hundred applications on file for our training Allyn and its just As the burnout rate for our youth workers is its Drain ing after six months of each worker lasts about a that probably enough each worker has five a contract signed with each of the kids for a the worker and each child define the Childs problems and the contract sets out reasonable goals for the child to work theres tremendous rapport Between the work ers and the Best of it works about 80 per cent of the this int Ninet five its five part of every night and a helluva lot More the workers make their rounds of the the families of the the probation teach monitoring the childrens Environ the evenings and weekends Are for recreational activities and Community work Camp shovelling cleaning raking mowing Clearing Camp grounds and the idea is to Combine work and play to give the kids Ken free press youth workers Vera Steinberger from Yelland and Debbie Karish put in Long hours helping troubled a practical involvement in Normal Summers Are we have five Day and 10day camping trips but weve got to have that years Assurance from the without this project would go Down and that be a damned Ive seen it transform for Many of our its the Only viable alternative to despite our kids having begun delinquent were a preventive and rehabilitative were trying to keep the kids in the it it project adventure holds to the heretical concept of paying its clients to under its honorarium sys the children can earn up to a though they average a its based on the conditions of their their prescribed per Sonal objectives improved school at work family social Community weve had to fight to keep alive every Allyn this is competitive were not particularly Well liked by other or the for that and the honorarium system is always an the functions As a realistic approximation of the conventional work Reward Therese been kids who just blow their some on booze and she have to recognize that Many of the kids come from generations of family life where working for wages int where working int even project adventure is the longest Ive Ever this is an incentive we pre Fer rewards to the kids know All about any kid who cant be for whatever wont be reached by a few Bucks a we have so Many referrals on the waiting list that the ones who constantly breach their contracts have to be they have a destructive effect on the the groups Are there the Only secure Community most of our kids have Ever it it it youth worker Lew Yelland group is Bowling there Are three aged 13 to including the one from the West end and Yvonne a project two others in the group we rent Home at the time to be picked Lew is separated from his wife and lives with his 15yearold his own passage through the shadows has left him with a Flinty sense of a finely tuned deception Detector and awesome these kids Are he they have All the required qualities of these Middle class kids like my and i cant help it if that sounds trite that compensates for the ones you the kids who Are too far gone when we get that what you cant think the hundreds of other kids like right in this who get into the correctional system and never get driving Lew and the boys Are then one boy says that was really what should we do to Morrow night then play some ill beat you out of some change everyone chuckles except the boy from the West end the boy despite the harrowing experience ear was most exuberant during the Hes Folk music vibrant by Coral Mckendrick there Are some who say that your Chance of finding a Sasquatch is about As probable As locating traditional Ca Nadian Maple a six Man Canadian Folk is out to prove them Maple sugar got its Start in 1973 when music educator and musician Dorothy Hogan embarked on a project to repro Duce Early Canadian music on in a neat turnabout of the usual order of the record Maple sugar gave birth to a performing group of the same this bilingual which has featured different Folk performers Over the has toured All Canadian provinces and the North West Terri tories plus eight american including a concert at the United states House of Congress in eight years Down the Singer musician James Gordon is the Only remaining member of the original troupe but Maple sugar is still going on a 20city tour of Western the group will Stop in Winnipeg for a concert tonight in the Winnipeg Art Gordon explained the company musical Aims in a phone Call from Thunder we try to give people As Broad a perspective As we can on the whole musical tradition of this most people dont know anything about it because its not the kind of thing that gets a lot of we do historical research into the material but then we try to bring it up to Date because its an entertaining not a museum he attributed Maple sugars evident resilience and comparative longevity to the fact that Over the years weve managed to Latch on to people who Are the Best in their he went on to Praise his colleagues particularly that of Gilles an instrumentalist and vocalist with a firm grasp of the acadian Folk tradition Dawson a fiddle player in the French and Irish and Donnie the father of Canadian Gordon plus Randy Sutherland and Jeff Bird make up the rest of the they form the Trio of Suther Gordon and Bird which a month ago released its debut album Tama a collection of Early Canadian specializing in Canadian Folk music offers a few special the main one being that most Folk music played North of the 49th parallel is actually rooted in some overseas its True that there Are very few songs we could Call strictly indigenous Canadian songs except for the native Peoples but weve found in tracing Back that once a song has landed in this country it obtains its own you can pick out a song and Tell for sure whether its from the Ottawa Valley or the red River Valley or the finding sources for the material can also be a he we find we dont mind using our most of the Early Canad an music is not its found in archives and Folk song usually transcribed by academics and folklorists who didst quite know the we have to guess what they were thinking when they Tran scribed Ever on the Outlook for More Materi Gordon is hoping the groups stay in Winnipeg will enable him to uncover Metis Maple sugar performs songs from both the English and French cultures in their Gordon finds that de spite the Many divisions and Dis agreements Between French and English Canada the group receives a positive reaction wherever it asked if Maple sugar is consciously attempting to serve the Aims of nation Al Gordon answered thoughtful Well its definitely in our minds to do people have always thrown the Label musical ambassadors on us and its True in a while our music is not intended As political material the fact that we make a balance Between the French and the English makes a bit of a political people can see there aint that much difference be tween them although the emphasis is on the tra the members of Maple sugar also make forays into the contemporary music Gordon and Bird perform their own original this knowledge of contemporary styling finds its Way into the groups treatment of traditional we have no qualms about having a contemporary slant on some of the arrangements we do because were out to have fun and entertain folks and their Are a Little different than Peoples ears were 100 years Coral Mckendrick is a Winnipeg free More Maple Canada sugar keeps part of s heritage ;