Ilona: Well, that’s a very good and difficult question. I think I’m just really proud of the fact that we’ve been able to reach out and engage youth and we’ve been able to figure out new and innovative and exciting ways to get youth involved when they wouldn’t usually get involved. So that’s really for us what’s awesome, what is a great accomplishment that we’ve been able to be innovative and we’ve been able to reach people that the organizations haven’t been able to.

 

 

C: The website looks great.

 

I: We’re only going to get better. We’re making some big changes this spring so you should definitely check it out.

 

 

C: How is Apathy Is Boring encouraging youth to become more politically in tune?

 

I: We have a number of different program areas. The first one is concerts and events. We encourage young people and political leaders to come together and create things for dialogue so people can see politicians being human beings and understand that they can really have an influence on decision makers and the way that the decisions are taken. That is definitely a way that we get involved. We also have a website that has a lot of information about how to get involved, why to get involved, and it’s just the basics because sometimes it’s just about understanding the simple things that make it easier to find out how you want to be involved. We offer a lot of volunteer opportunities at Apathy Is Boring and it’s pretty exciting to give young people experience and understanding of what it’s like to volunteer and how it can help them. And then we also do a lot of campaigns to encourage young people to vote. We also have a program that’s not about getting young people involved helping political leaders and politicians and adult organizations that are engaged in our network that’s very important too it’s not just about youth getting involved it’s also about understanding.

 

 

C: In terms of voting, do you think Canada should lower the current voting age, because if so do you think that Canadian politics would become more of a popularity contest? Because some youth are voting just because they like someone better not necessarily because of which politician is most deserving. And that they agree with their policies?

 

I: Well, we don’t have that position on necessarily if we want to lower the voting age. We are actually hosting a debate now on behalf of a senator, a Canadian senator who is interested in hearing whether youth think it’s important to lower the voting age. So I encourage you guys to check it out, it’s called Old Enough to Vote; it’s on facebook. We don’t take the position ourselves where we think it’s important for young people to think about the different ways had what it would mean for them if they had an opportunity to vote when they’re of age or different ways how democracy should become more accessible to them. So that’s definitely questions that we think about a lot and we like to create creative dialogue for people to talk about those issues.

 

 

C: Some of my friends volunteer for certain parties. Many of them wish that they could vote now that they’re 16, but I think that some students or some youth our age, I’m not sure if they have the appropriate knowledge, to make a responsible choice in voting.

 

I: That’s definitely something people have different opinions on whether it’s the way to go, but I think what we can all agree on is that we need to find better ways on getting people involved.

 

 

C: How did you and the other co-founders of Apathy Is Boring come up with the ideas to create this nationwide movement?

 

I: I would say we’ve been involved in environmental activism for a long time and I also have an artist background as well and I’m just really tired of preaching to the converted all the time, it seems that the young people that were involved were always the same young people and that there just really wasn’t organizations that were reaching out to youth to get engaged and it was myself and two colleagues that were artistic friends of mine that started Apathy is boring. And we just really felt like there had to bet a better way of reaching out to youth who were not involved so we were lucky to have contacts in the arts and in the music industry and we were able to get a lot of support for what we were doing pretty quickly and kind of get people to pay attention and it seemed there was really a gap in Canada to have an organization that is not partisan and really a voice for youth.

 

 

C: How did you guys come up with the name “Apathy Is Boring”?

 

I: It was actually a friend of mine who came up with it. It was just in a conversation. We were having coffee and he was like “You know, apathy is really boring.” And that’s how the name came to be.

 

 

C: What advice would you give to youth who want to create a youth movement like yourself, similar to one like Apathy Is Boring?

 

I: I would encourage…you would learn a lot if you start an organization.  It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of years of being a volunteer and there are a lot of things that you have to learn and spend a lot of time doing that you never thought you would. Like managing other people and getting financial management, that’s not very exciting but part of growing an organization. I would encourage young people to really find ideas that they’re passionate about, something that you really care about so that you’re willing to make the sacrifice. You’re growing something that’s going to make an impact. The first year we ran AIB we only had about $3000 and I was a volunteer for the first 2 ½ years of AIB. So it is a long time of blood, sweat and tears to get it started, but we have been able to accomplish some pretty awesome things.

 

 

C: So what can you tell us that AIB is planning for the future?

 

I: We have a lot of stuff planned. We are planning to do some concerts again this fall, we did 4 concerts this last summer and fall, and we are planning to do that again all across Canada. So information about those will be launched soon. And, we have lot of different artists, last year we worked with Hedley, Julie Black, and Young Scarlet and a lot of really awesome artists at our concerts. We are going to do that again this summer to really encourage youth to think about why to get involved and why to vote. We also are planning a series of youth dialogues to get people and community leaders can talk about issues that are important to them and really get to know each other and young people can better understand how to get involved in decision making. And, as I mentioned we are revamping our website so it is an even better resource for youth on how and why to get involved.

 

 

C: In one sentence what would you say to those people that consider themselves politically apathetic, to get them going into the movement?

 

I: What I would say is that it is important to recognize how politics and government affects you. It really affects every area of our lives and the reality is that if you don’t vote if you don’t get involved you can’t complain. And we need as young people to have our voices heard and we need to be complaining because there is a lot wrong with the way things are and it does, whether you think it does or not, it really does affect your day to day life. So, I would encourage young people to find out about an issue that you really care about and start to understand how you can impact the decision makers to make a change.