Implementation Plan: Overview

Our plan to reach our goal of changing the legal drinking age to 18 years targets change on a community level. We will focus on fostering the participation of community members in bringing light to the issue at hand. More specifically, our focus will be to provide information and promote awareness regarding issues surrounding the legal drinking age in Ontario and its effects on constructions of youth. We will not be trying to convince adults that the legal drinking age should be lowered. Instead, our efforts will focus on re-constructing beliefs and stereotypes about the value of youth and the realities of their involvement with alcohol.

Our agenda for creating change also includes adult community members and parents. We wish to provide information and promote awareness regarding the significant impact of the current negative constructions of youth and the realities of youth drinking patterns. We also wish to create relationships with these individuals to continue to open more and more space that will allow for the possibility of changes on the political level.

Through a variety of means, we hope to engage youth as key contributors in this change. We are using an inclusive approach to validate young persons as active participants in this process. Our emphasis lies in assisting the voices of youth in promoting their positive contributions to their community. In addition, much emphasis will be placed on increasing the role of young persons in the creation and modification of their collective identity.

Our means for achieving our objectives are as follows:
-public awareness campaign
-partnerships with community members/parents
-school media project
-printed media and website

It is believed that these programs and resources will allow for these communities to consider more accurate ways of conceptualizing youth while involving youth as active members of this process.