Miriam: How much do you get paid for your 10 hours a week?

Neil:

Oh my God, if I actually tried to break it down, it would probably be like a cent an hour! I actually got an honorarium of $250 from James Lyng, and that was kind of my compensation for the 12 weeks of programming.

Miriam: How do you feel that your desire to be a youth worker, or your intention or capacity to do youth work is affected by the fact that you’re underpaid?

Neil:

My future as a youth worker is kind of in question! I think education is something in general that I really feel compelled to work in, whether it be as a youth worker – which I don’t have a problem with doing now; I’m young and I can do it – I have more energy then I probably will as I get older. I’m sure I would love to get paid, but at the same time I enjoy what I’m doing, and I think I get things from it, and experiences and lessons learned from it that you can’t put a monetary value on.

I still get a lot out of it, and I still want to pursue that further, but I would like to be able to work with organizations that have a bit more of an infrastructure there, and I at least want to experience what that’s like, because I’ve never done that. Just to even work with an already established program that’s been around for lots of years, and see the difference. Hey, maybe even going through that, I’ll be able to apply some of those practices or what they do into more grassroots type stuff.

How do those problems affect you as a youth worker? It does affect you as a youth worker. It’s kind of hard to feel like your job is being valued when you’re not being paid for it, right? I mean, I know personally, even with my other job, that my morale on the job is directly correlated with not just how much I’m getting paid – getting paid is just a small part of what you get for knowing that you’re valued by who you’re working for, do you know what I mean? You can get it in other ways – you could get support, or a good friend, or you could get someone, like a boss, who’s exceptionally prophetic and tells you these amazing lessons. I don’t know – I’m just saying anything now!

I think that in order to do your job to the best of your abilities, you need to be supported. One of those ways to be supported is financially. It does not hurt you to get paid – it helps you.