Brandon Kaine’s mom was more excited than he was last Friday about his imminent school trip to Tanzania.
“Every day she’d be like, ‘You’re going to Africa!’ And I’m just like, yeah, you didn’t have to get all the shots and all the training,” the 16-year-old said.
Kaine was nervous about the 20-hour flight and spending two weeks so far from Vancouver when his furthest destination had previously been Seattle.
Kaine is one of 15 teens who left Vancouver Thursday morning to scale Mount Kilimanjaro alongside 10 adults with the Street2Peak project. The youth include seven of the 22 students enrolled in the Streetfront alternative program that focuses on physical fitness and outdoor recreation for students in grades 8 to 10 at Britannia secondary and five former Streetfront kids. Streetfront students cope with learning disabilities, family struggles and difficulties with the law. Many are aboriginal boys from the Downtown Eastside.
But Streetfront doesn’t pity these kids who’ve dealt with the death of loved ones, the absence of father figures and living in foster care. The alternative program pushes them to work hard and exceed their own expectations.
“We’re known for our marathon program,” said Streetfront teacher Trevor Stokes. “We don’t run small races, 5-k, we run 42-k races, right. So we want to up the ante as much as possible.”
Now Streetfront is upping the ante by expanding students’ borders.
“One time, we had nine out of 22 kids, and nine had never been to Deep Cove or North Vancouver,” Stokes said. “We can run across the bridge in 40 minutes.”
Street2Peak raised more than $100,000 for the trip. The group will spend eight days ascending and descending Kilimanjaro, and then they’ll embark on a four-day safari in Serengeti National Park.
Stokes is most looking forward to seeing Street2Peak kids interact with Tanzanian teens.
“We’re not listening to iPods, we’re not doing any of that stuff. We’re literally out playing soccer and figuring out what it’s like to be a kid in Africa and reflect on what we’ve got, how fortunate we are,” he said.
The trip to Tanzania is meant to be the first in a 10-year Street2Peak project that will see Streetfront students tackle a different continent every two years. The first excursion includes 10 adults to help ensure the initial trip’s success.
Britannia’s former vice-principal, Andy Schofield, instigated the trip after his brother in South Africa suggested Schofield visit Kilimanjaro for his 50th birthday. Schofield decided it would be more rewarding to send students with severely limited opportunities.
Street2Peak kids will share their stories with elementary school students upon their return to help younger kids see what they could achieve.
“[Streetfront kids] sometimes get kicked out of places where they come from,” Stokes said. “So we will go back to every single kid’s elementary school and we’ll put a presentation on and that kid will be front and centre… [We’ll] show that the kid you once judged, or maybe knew, is not the kid that is today.”
Kaine, who came to Streetfront because he was having trouble focusing and was skipping school, was worried about the lengthy journey, but looking forward to actually climbing Kilimanjaro.
“That, to me, is just a once in a lifetime thing that will happen and it’s a big goal that I’m going to be very happy to achieve,” he said.
crossi@vancourier.com
twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi
