The Uniter

In response to this article http://uniter.ca/view/5774/ found in my school's weekly newspaper, I wrote this letter to the editor:


Dear Editor,

My name is Vanessa and I am a third year student here at the University of Winnipeg. Upon reading an article in the most recent Uniter issue, I have been very frustrated. The article, “Grossroots activists slam Youth for Christ once more” by Ethan Cabel is a disgrace to the Uniter, the university, and the city of Winnipeg.

My family has been supporters of various YFC affiliates for many years. My husband has volunteered at the Edge Skatepark for over 13 years and although he no longer volunteers there, he is still very much involved in the program as we are monthly supporters of the director of the Edge. Aside from the considerable amount of personal offense I have taken to this article is it targets me, my faith and my family, my anger and frustration go much further as the faults found within this article are un-ending.

Firstly, and above all other reasons, there is the issue of the comparison of the new YFC drop-in centre with the atrocity that was Residential Schools within Manitoba. To compare these two, a force-free, safe place to hang out for youth of all ages, genders and races, with schools where people were forced to leave family and culture and in many situations terribly abused or even murdered – is a crime. This significantly devalues the extent of damage that Residential Schools have caused and may make Residential School victims feel as though the writer of this article along with Lissie Rappaport who vocalized this comparison, feel as though they together have no knowledge with regard to Residential Schools and also lack any amount of respect for the hurt that Residential Schools have caused.

As mentioned above, the person that was chosen to interview for this article was Lissie Rappaport, someone with seemingly no connection to YFC at all. This significantly decreases the credibility of not only the article, but the Uniter, as using a source that is not involved in the project and has not been affected by this organization is far too removed to have a validated perspective.

I myself have worked for a non-profit organization and have seen first-hand how government funding is often hard to come by. I found, through my own experience, that the government funding we received at Youth Employment Service was based strictly upon the amount of clients we served a day. In this article Rappaport drops the names of a number of organizations but it is completely illegitimate to compare funding for organizations as they are all funded and not funded for very different reasons, reasons that were not researched and therefore should not be included in printed publications.

As a person who reads the Uniter on a regular basis I am sincerely dis-heartened by this article and completely unimpressed with the quality of writing and the credibility of the source used. I hope that in the future greater discretion will be used in selecting articles for print in this publication. Considering the significant amount of problems found with this article I feel it would be appropriate for a retraction to be printed in the next issue. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Vanessa Stachiw