Even with the school year finishing off here in Canada, RESPECT is by no means slowing down its momentum. Letter exchanges are tapering off due to the summer season, but on other fronts RESPECT is marching forward.

A remarkable growth in RESPECT Pakistan and India should make for an interesting coming school year, especially since we have emerging partnerships with Teachers Without Borders, Lawyers Without Borders, and the Jane Goodall Institute that should spur innovative developments. Schools in the USA plan to send soccer balls to their partnered school, a school in London Ontario requested a package of letters so that they too can join the letter exchange, and Taiwan RESPECT is working towards fundraising for computers. Finally, the two new RESPECT university classes, English for Academic Purposes and Statistics, are about to begin as volunteer teachers make final preparations.

In light of these developments, RESPECT is continuing to strive towards raising awareness of refugee issues and bringing communities together in the process. We thank you all for being such an integral part of the RESPECT family.

WREN Youth Conference

By Kate Mossman

The Winnipeg Refugee Education Network (WREN) is a grass-roots organization that focuses on encouraging awareness of refugee issues in the local Winnipeg community, and also serves as RESPECT Canada. From May 23rd to the 24th at the University of Winnipeg, the group successfully held their first youth conference, which involved approximately 25 high school students as participants. This two-day event, known as the Refugee and Youth Leadership Conference, helped to raise youth awareness of refugee and international situations, and encouraged youth involvement in school and community organizations concerned with refugee issues.

The conference featured a number of workshops, with topics ranging from youth leadership and activism to cross-cultural and racism awareness. These workshops were conducted by local organizations, including RESPECT, WREN, the Mennonite Central Committee, KAIROS and Welcome Place.

"We were very excited to host this conference and we were very pleased with the mutual exchange of ideas between refugee advocacy groups and these motivated young people," says Robyn Mossman, WREN Coordinator. With support from the University of Winnipeg's Student Association and WUSC, as well as the Needs Centre for War Affected Families and the provincial government, the conference came at no cost to the youth participants. The goal of the conference was to have the students walk away having gained useful knowledge and skills they can take back to their high schools to enrich their own school experience, as well as those of their classmates.