INNISFAIL - Alearra Day Chief is a 15-year-old Innisfailian with big dreams.
The Grade 10 student is on an ambitious journey to change Innisfail to make it a better community for local youth.
This month she is teaming up with Innisfail RCMP Const. Craig Nelson to fast-track her dream, one that could turn around the lives of scores of young Innisfailians and many more throughout Central Alberta.
It was just six weeks ago, from Aug. 20 to 26, when Alearra seized her dream during a weeklong Youth Leadership Conference at Regina's RCMP Depot, the national police service's world-renowned training academy. She was selected with youths from other provinces for leadership training. The group of youths, who were given uniforms and lived in Depot barracks for the week, worked on developing team building and public speaking skills, ran the PARE (Physical, Ability, Requirement Evaluation) test that every cadet has to pass to become a police officer and met many interesting guest speakers, including actor Sladen Peltier from the acclaimed 2017 motion picture Indian Horse.
Most importantly, each youth was tasked to develop an action plan to address some of the issues identified to them by young people in their own communities. When that was done they all had to stand among their peers and present their plans.
"When she was there (Regina) she was engaged with everything they put in front of her, and there was a lot of challenges," said Nelson, the local RCMP's school resource officer who was also at the conference.
Alearra came up with several reasons why many Innisfail youths need help: they have nothing to do after school hours and many get in trouble; local youth are not properly informed on what resources are available for help, like counselling after school hours or weekends; many endure significant anxiety issues; and there are challenges finding meaningful employment in town. While this set of issues was ultimately narrowed down, she was soon ready to put a plan in place and make her own presentation to her conference peers.
"To see kids who are looking at the community and say, 'You know what. I know I can contribute to this community. I can do something that will improve it', and then go and do it. It is just impressive," said Nelson. I was nothing but impressed with the kids that showed up there, nothing but impressed with Alearra. She came up with this idea all by herself."
Alearra's idea to address local teen issues was to organize a rock concert. The young teen wants to bring the Robb Nash Project to Central Alberta. Robb Nash, the band's singer and guitar player, has inspired thousands of young people with his music and own personal story in battling unimaginable adversity, including mental health issues.
"She came up with the idea of Robb Nash fitting really well here. I had not thought of that," said Nelson. "She took that and ran with it. For her to own it and to go and get it done is pretty impressive."
There is a lot of work ahead for the young teen to see her dream realized. Alearra and Nelson have to recruit people to help with fundraising as the cost could be as high as $25,000. They will meet Robb Nash Project representatives on Oct. 15 to discuss venues for the show that will be held in Red Deer. The hope is to attract thousands of school kids from across Central Alberta, including Innisfailians, to hear a message of hope, strength and perseverance.
In the meantime, Alearra is also thinking of even bigger dreams past the concert. Her experience at the RCMP Depot has opened up her world to unlimited possibilities.
"It was the best thing ever," said Alearra, adding she dreams of being an RCMP officer in the future. "It was seeing what you had to go through to get there. It was pretty intense that week, knowing what I was going into."
