Katimavik is back opening minds and teaching reconciliation, Calgary volunteer says

Pierre Trudeau introduced it in the late 1970s, Stephen Harper axed it six years ago and now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has brought it back.

The popular youth volunteer programKatimavikis running on a national level once again and this time with a focus onreconciliation.

And that new message is speaking to a volunteer in the Calgary house of the six-city program.

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"I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I think we are going to be working really hard, four days a week volunteering, learning about Indigenous cultures on Fridays,"JacobKatesRose told Radio-Canada.

"Everybody seems really nice and are here to learn, to work, to experience but to have a good time and make friends."

The program is about getting youth, ages 18 to 25, out into communities across the country doing volunteer work and learning about themselves in the process, the elder Trudeau said when he introduced it in 1977.

Harper cut its funding in 2012, but now it's back.

"It's been six years since we have had the national experience," Calgary youth development director Andy Garrow said.

"It looks a lot the same. Youth leave their home communities and explore different parts of the country they hopefully haven't been to before."

Now there's a new component to it, too.

"We have always had a strong focus on civic engagement but now we are saying that civic engagement also includes recognition of Indigenous history and culture, and more of an engagement with the local Indigenous communities where the houses are," Garrow said.

There are 11 volunteers at six houses in Calgary and the same number in five other Canadian cities. In total, there were about 200 applicants for those 66 positions, which include food and housing and a small per diem.

"The house is seven 18-year-olds, two 19-year-olds and two 20-year-olds," Kates Rose said.

"We are all pretty young adults, maybe not even adults yet, so hopefully we figure it out quick but I think the first week might be a bit of a mess."

He says each of his fellow Calgary volunteers will work with a local charity or non-profit for three months before moving on to a second community for the remainder of the six-month program.

"There are food banks and shelters, a science festival, women's shelters, Inn from the Cold. I am expecting to do some office-style work, working as an intern and working with kids, but I am open to anything," the teen from Toronto said.

He says understanding Canada's Indigenous origins is important.

"Uncovering the truth about Canada's relationship with our Indigenous cultures, and more than our relationship with them, the truth about the atrocities that the Canadian people and government have done, about residential schools," are a fewof the goals, Kates Rose said.

"Educating young people is really the first step and such an important first step to meaningful reconciliation. You can't know how to befriend somebody and how to trust them if you don't know about them.

"It is so important that young people who are open minded, who can learn about other peoples' cultures, do."

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With files from Radio-Canada's Nelly Alberola.