Young people from the DPJ must face several obstacles in their school career. The statistics speak for themselves: barely 25% of them obtain a high school diploma before the age of 19. But there are still some great successes. Dustin Gendron-Lépine, 19, is an example of perseverance.
Frank smile, calm voice, lively and bright eyes. Dustin Gendron-Lépine is an endearing type. A friendly young man who speaks with hope and confidence about his future, which he sees as grandiose. A theater student at CEGEP de Saint-Laurent, he wishes to continue his studies at the conservatory to become an actor and dreams of breaking into Hollywood.
To help him achieve his ambitions, the DPJ Youth Foundation has been supporting him for several years through the school perseverance program by paying all his school fees, his textbooks, his computer. He also benefits from assistance with his rent and an Opus card. “It took away a lot of stress from not working as much so I could concentrate on my studies,” he says, gratefully.
Dustin’s “secret”
If life seems to be smiling on Dustin today, that wasn’t always the case. He was only three years old when he was taken from his family due in part to his mother’s alcoholism problem. He had a few foster families, where it wasn’t always easy, before finding himself in a family that became his own.
“At the beginning, when I was young and innocent, I thought that I had been abandoned, that no one loved me,” he says. “Children are cruel. I was bullied a lot in elementary school, I was told that I didn’t have parents, that they had abandoned me. It played in my head. I thought: maybe they didn’t love me, maybe I just don’t have parents because they didn’t want me. »
He suffered so much from this situation that when he arrived in high school, he did everything to hide the fact that he was living with a host family. “It had become a secret, I didn’t tell anyone,” he confides.
During parent meetings, he hid so that his classmates would not see him in the company of his host mother. If it happened, he said it was his grandmother. “I wasn’t ashamed of my foster mother, I was ashamed of being in foster care,” he explains sadly, repeating how much he loves his foster mother. “As I get older, I realize that it was a bit ridiculous to hide from that. It’s family, I really consider her my mother. »
Maturity also helped him see that the placement was ultimately a good thing for him, because his parents were not fit to care for him. “Looking back, I know it was for the best, and that if I had stayed with my parents, I might not be the person I am today. »
But he cannot completely erase the pain, which shows on his face and in his voice, when he speaks of the broken links with his biological family. “I never really had a good relationship with them,” he laments. For more than two years, he cut ties with his mother, who had a negative influence on him, but he recently reconnected with his father. “I see him from time to time, he is better, he is on the right path. »
Dream big
Hundreds of young people from the greater Montreal area like Dustin benefit from the support of the DPJ Foundation through school perseverance and transition to adult life programs.
“We know that the more diplomas they have, the more likely they are to break the cycle of poverty and pass that on to their children,” explains the general director of the Foundation, Fabienne Audette. But to really help these young people, we must also help them with their apartment costs, transportation costs, and sometimes food costs. We need to go further and remove as many obstacles as possible,” she explains.
Because the obstacles, for these young people who often carry a heavy burden due to their family situation, are numerous. “These are young people with great trauma, who have immense sadness, disappointments, abandonment,” she notes. Added to this are sometimes behavioral or attention problems, which further complicate their journey.
She finds it essential that these young people can also experience little magical moments and dream big. Sometimes it involves small details, such as paying for equipment for a young person who could not otherwise afford to join a sports team, or providing a budget for a young girl to enable her to attend her senior prom.
Scholarships are also given to graduates of all levels to reward them for their efforts, during the Grand Gala Perseverance which took place Thursday evening. “We gave more than $50,000 to 325 young people,” proudly says Mme Audette, who was touched by the “strength of their message” to encourage young people to follow their dreams.
The individual amounts of these scholarships are not very high, she recognizes, but they nevertheless allow young people to have fun and feel valued. “The Foundation will often have the role that the parent would have,” she illustrates. Many parents will give a gift at the end of the year to recognize the children’s efforts and excellent academic results. That’s kind of the idea. This allows the young person to say: “That’s mine. I’m going to do with this money what I’ve been dreaming of for months.” Sometimes it’ll be a video game, a pair of shoes — it’s really trendy right now — or a special activity. »
If Mme Audette is convinced of the necessity of her program, but she nevertheless notes that more needs to be done. Much more. “There should also be in-depth work at the level of the DPJ structures,” she concludes. We are part of an ecosystem, we think we have an interesting contribution, but we cannot solve everything alone. »