Camosun student takes action in current city issues

Campus March 15, 2017

Camosun first-year Computer Engineering student Solomon Lindsay is passionate about community issues. And rather than sitting on his couch complaining about them, Lindsay decided to join an initiative put forth by Victoria city council: the Youth Engagement Strategy, which aims to get youth aged 10 to 25 involved in their local government.

Lindsay says he has always seen city issues as important, and he says it’s important to the future of the city that youth get involved.

Camosun student Soloman Lindsay cares about municipal issues. (photo by Jill Westby/Nexus).

“Some of it is being political, having youth be more aware of what’s going on,” he says. “Other things are like having more participation in youth events. My involvement was largely due to previous things I had been doing around the city. I’ve done a lot of different similar sorts of things, like getting involved with alternative housing for the homeless. It’s just been something I’m very interested in.”

Lindsay was in Step Up Leadership, a group aimed at teens who are interested in gaining leadership skills. Through that, Victoria’s Youth Engagement Strategy was created.

“What I really wanted to get out of this was to try and get more youth interested in the type of things I’m interested in,” says Lindsay. “What I tried to get out of this strategy was getting the opportunity for youth to be more engaged by the city—getting the city to employ or have actual physical interactions and connections with youth.”

Lindsay says his life was made more diverse by going through the technicalities of computer engineering and then having something social, something “radically different on the side.”

Camosun English instructor Alexis Martfeld, one of Linsday’s teachers, says his studies never faltered despite his time-consuming extracurricular activities.

“Initially, he had written to me before the term, asking if he could not attend some of the classes to attend these council meetings for the Youth Engagement Strategy,” she says. “He offered to have the mayor write a letter to attest to his commitment, but after meeting him I felt that it would be safe to say he would commit to both the council and to his studies. It never interfered with his schoolwork. He was always very committed.”

Lindsay says that sustainability is always a focus for him, right down to his classes here at Camosun.

“The computer engineering course has a sustainability focus, which is one of the reasons I took it,” he says. “The Youth Engagement Strategy, although not targeted to that, there’s always kind of that underlying thought that we are going to have to step up at some point and figure out what we’re doing with the world. It’s kind of a rough place right now.”

Lindsay’s area of interest is humanitarian architecture that is geared toward sustainable design. Lindsay admits that it’s a big leap from computer engineering, but because of a course that Camosun offers in renewable-energy technologies, such as solar energy, he was drawn in.

“I was very interested in applying that to community buildings and building it into society,” he says, “and in the youth engagement strategy there is a lot of opportunity for that, not in architecture, but just in trying to get youth to understand a little bit more of what the city is doing environmentally. I think it’s very important for everyone—especially the coming generation—to know what’s currently happening on that front.”

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