Episode 13: “There’s no one way to do this”: On youth-adult partnerships and embracing complexity, a conversation with Sharif Mahdy, Stoney McCart, Kwaku Agyemang, and Maddy Ross

Details

This episode features Sharif Mahdy, Stoney McCart, Kwaku Agyemang from the Students Commission of Canada (SCC) and podcast host Maddy Ross. In this conversation, they reflect on how the SCC’s origins at a national youth conference in 1991 helped to shape four core values, referred to as the Four Pillars, as a process for youth engagement. Drawing on these Four Pillars - Respect, Listen, Understand and Communicate™️ - as a research framework, they discuss the dynamics of producing knowledge through youth-adult partnerships and why addressing adult positionalities is a critical dimension of conducting YPAR.

 The Students Commission of Canada is a national charitable intergenerational organization that purposely works with others to ensure that young people’s voices are heard and valued so that their ideas for improving themselves, their peers and their communities can be put into action. In 2000, the SCC was named the lead organization for the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement (CEYE): a network of youth, youth-serving organizations, academics and policy-makers focused on identifying and sharing best practices on meaningful youth engagement and the impact of youth engagement initiatives.

Sharif Mahdy is the Executive Director of the Students Commission of Canada. He has worked in the youth sector for over two decades, and has been with the SCC since 2010. Sharif has an Honours Bachelor of Health Sciences from the University of Western Ontario and a Master of Arts in Leadership from Royal Roads University. Sharif volunteers for several non-profit Boards and currently serves as the Chair of the National Alliance for Children and Youth (NACY): a national charitable organization that brings organizations together in a collaborative network dedicated to enhancing the well-being of children and youth in Canada. Sharif also serves as volunteer Board member for Child Development Institute (CDI): a children’s mental health agency in Toronto, the Catalysts’ Circle and Mentor Canada.

Stoney McCart is a co-founder of the Students Commission of Canada and Director, Program Development. As publisher of Tiny Giant magazine, the precursor to the SCC, she converted an adult-written youth magazine into a youth-directed weekly publication with an editorial board of 100 students from across Canada, reaching every high school in the country. As the Executive Director of the SCC from 1992 to 2017, Stoney supported youth across Canada to turn their ideas into action. In 2000, Stoney helped establish the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement to develop an evidence base for youth-driven work in Canada.

Kwaku Agyemang is the Manager of Client Relationships and External Communications at the Students Commission of Canada, where he facilitates youth engagement in policy and decision-making through national programming. He has a passion for creative strategy, amplifying youth voice, and mentoring his peers. Kwaku has a degree in Media Production from Toronto Metropolitan University. You can find him @KwakuOnAir

References and further reading

Students Commission of Canada: https://www.studentscommission.ca/en
SCC Archives: https://www.studentscommission.ca/en/resources/archives
Youth Who Thrive: https://www.youthwhothrive.ca/