Amadeusz - The Look At My Life Project

When young people are arrested in Ontario they are brought to court for a bail hearing. If they do not receive bail they are held in a correctional facility while awaiting trial. These young people may be held in remand for months even though it has not been established that they are guilty of a crime. While they wait they only have limited access to rehab services and educational programming. 

We operate with the mistaken belief that programs and services are readily available in prisons. This is only partially true - there are educational programs and rehab services in facilities that house individuals that have been sentenced, but for those individuals awaiting court appearances and trial there are often very few or no programs available at all.

We know from the research that recidivism rates for individuals who participate in education programs while incarcerated are lower. We know from common sense that participating in education programs

• is a way of demonstrating good faith to the judge,

• is a productive use of otherwise idle time,

• is a way of improving a young person's employability,

• is a means of reconnecting youth to education programs once they are released,

• is a way to combat the terrible education statistics of the incarcerated population
  

In Toronto, in 2006, a dynamic and inspiring group of young people came together with the belief that young people everywhere, including those in conflict with the law, have a basic human right to an education. They are working to address this population's gap in access by pairing youth on remand with tutors who assist them to finish high school either by earning credits towards their OSSED or by earning their GED. 

Amadeusz is engaging a small segment of a much larger population of disengaged youth. Their passion, resourcefulness and deep understanding of the issues means they are making connections one youth at a time while asking big and important questions on behalf of disadvantaged youth throughout the province. 

Here they tell the story in five minutes …