Hey, Hey, Hey—Listen to What I Gotta Say: Songs Elevate Youth Voice in Alberta Wildfire Disaster Recovery

Abstract

Music pulses emotion in its lyrics, its tune, and in the creative process.A song can move people to dance, to reflect, and—often—to act. For an artist, a song’s creation can also reveal and clarify one’s own emotions. When people listen, a song can legitimize that the artists have something valuable to say—especially when the artists are youth who believe their ideas need a wider audience. This article talks about the power of song for youth recovery post-disaster in the context of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire disaster in Alberta, Canada. It highlights the use of music in a community-engaged research project that aimed to understand and amplify youth ideas for improving their community. The article draws on the value of Youth-Adult Partnerships, where eight youth worked with a professional recording studio in the wildfire-affected community to produce original songs for a youth-centric social media campaign. Focusing on the youths’ songs and personal experiences of their development, the article offers ways forward for wildfire recovery through processes that strengthen youth voice and wellbeing. The community-engaged research process underscores the power of music creation as an empowering method for enhancing youth engagement and reveals youths’ insights through their musical reflections on their priorities for a resilient community after disaster.

Creative action research

“…In YVR the use of multiple participatory media approaches and the creation of opportunities to share youth-created outputs strengthened youth development, voice, agency, and influence in the context of disaster recovery and resilience (Cox et al 2019;Plush and Cox 2019). Creating and ideally co-creating creative opportunities for youth to have a voice and to ensure there are listening spaces and events (e.g.…”

Children and Young People’s Participation in Disaster Risk Reduction

“…In Alberta, Canada, for example, the project Youth Voices Rising (YVR) (Resilience By Design et al, 2018) used several artbased methods to engage with young people affected by wildfires and to understand and amplify their ideas for improving their community. One of the activities in particular, the creation of original songs to be used in youth-centric social media, worked as an empowering tool that allowed them to express and share their ideas, and was also reported to have helped improve their wellbeing after the disaster (Plush and Cox, 2019).…”

Creative practice as a tool to build resilience to natural hazards in the Global South

“…However, in this study, we exclude games, but point to some excellent overview papers on how serious games can be used for disaster risk management (Solinska-Nowak et al, 2018), climate change adaptation (Flood et al, 2018), environmental management (Madani et al, 2017;Aubert et al, 2018), and flood management (e.g. Ramos et al, 2013;Crochemore et al, 2016;Arnal et al, 2016).…”