VISION
The Drumbeat Newsletter is a youth driven project that was both conceived and developed by Aboriginal youth from Friendship Centres within British Columbia. It is a multi-dimensional electronic medium to connect urban Aboriginal youth involved with the twenty-four Friendship Centres in the province. It is comprised of an on-line newsletter on the Drumbeat website (www.drumbeat.bc-payc.com), an electronic magazine sent to subscribers email addresses, as well as a very condensed version offered in print and distributed to each of the Friendship Centres.

The Drumbeat is an inclusive forum for Friendship Centre youth to share their stories, ideas, wisdom, challenges, opinions and creativity with one another. It also serves as a platform for exploring youth interests in digital media, arts and culture, writing, journalism, photography, video and other web based tools.

ROLE OF THE BCAAFC
The BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres plays a role to facilitate diverse opportunities for Friendship Centre youth to contribute to the newsletter by providing direction, editorial and content development support for each published edition.

The BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres has funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage Canadian Culture Online Initiative for four editions of the Drumbeat Newsletter. Our first edition was launched on December 19th, 2005.

CONTENTS
The focus for the first issues of the newsletter is Health and Justice to dovetail with the theme of the 2006 Aboriginal Youth Conference in Kelowna.

The newsletter and website will consist of the following sections and features:

• A Spotlight on the Annual Aboriginal Youth Conference
• A spotlight on a Friendship Centre
• A section where Youth can share their opinions on various issues facing aboriginal youth
• A section sharing opportunities available for youth (education, funding etc)
• A section on sports and recreation
• Music and video (songs, video and game will be accessible through the website)
• Poetry and Short Stories
• A column on Youth and Health

SUBMITTING TO THE EZINE
We are interested in receiving all types of material for the newsletter and website. These could include but are not restricted to:

• An article about your friendship centre
• An article about a role model or mentor to youth in your community
• Poetry, short stories, drawings, comics you’ve created
• Share a positive experience from last years Aboriginal Youth Conference
• Send us a song or video you’ve created and we’ll upload it onto the site
• Share your views on aboriginal youth and health
• Send in a photograph with accompanying story
• Start your own column
  

We highly encourage youth and Friendship Centre support workers to collaborate on creating submissions that fit with the above areas, or are a complete invention of your own.

The website will be as fun, interesting and meaningful as we all make it. Youth at Friendship Centres have said they want to know what other Centres are doing- now we have a medium to do that!!

We’d love to discuss your ideas and offer as much support and encouragement as we can. Please contact us at:

E: drumbeat@bcaafc.com
T: 1800-990-2432 (free)
388-5522 (within Greater Victoria, BC)

The Drumbeat
Newsletter and Website of BC Aboriginal Friendship Centre Youth

British Columbia Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres
e: drumbeat@bcaafc.com
t: 1800-990-2432