TURNING LIVES AROUND

Brianna Olson doesn't hide from her past. Nor will she let it define
her.

"I'm not ashamed to tell my story," the 21-year-old says. "It gives me
an opportunity to be upfront and truthful, to use it to help other
people."

Olson has seen a lot of the world's dark side in her short life. By
age 12, she was experimenting with pot and booze. By 15, she was
living on the streets, addicted to crystal meth.

By 16, she was already struggling to get clean and turn her life into
something she could be proud of.

But it was an uphill battle. The thug life is a powerful
undertow.

"I was nearly 17 and I was hanging with some very crazy people," she
says in a matter-of-fact tone. "I was seeing friends going to jail for
manslaughter, second-degree murder. These were the people I considered
my family."

Olson had gone back to school and was on her way to graduating as
class valedictorian, but she still had one foot on the street. Her
solo attempts to stay clean ended in frustration.

It all came crashing down in September 2004, when an ex-boyfriend's
body was found on the Enoch reserve a few weeks after his friends had
lost contact with him.

While no one has ever been charged with 21-year-old Patrick
Ouderkirk's killing, Olson is convinced he was murdered over a drug
debt.

The horror of Ouderkirk's death drove home the merciless brutality of
her environment, and the cheapness of life on the streets. She vowed
to honour him by living a meaningful life.

"It was like, if I ever did crystal meth again, I'd be spitting on his
grave," she says.

Somewhere along the way, Olson found the iHuman Youth Society, a
trail-blazing Edmonton organization that uses the arts to give
troubled youth a chance to refocus their lives.

Olson has always had a passion for the arts. She's a breakdancer,
singer/songwriter, poet and actor, and she found an outlet through the
iHuman Society that no other social program could offer.

"Often, once you're finally in recovery (from addiction), it's like
it's the end of the road," she says. "You're not on drugs. Great. Now
what? IHuman gives youth the chance to recover and then do things that
are actually meaningful. They can have a purpose."

For Olson, the impact of iHuman was so profound that she went on to
become a registered social worker and is now employed by the society.

She's become a sought-after speaker at forums and youth workshops all
over Alberta.

But now Olson faces the massive task of keeping in touch with the
scores of street kids who were turning their lives around in iHuman's
studio at 11355 105 Ave., which was shut down by city hall earlier
this month because the group's activities didn't conform to the
property's zoning.

The iHuman board knew this when the program moved into the building
eight months ago. According to president Lorris Williams, they've
never stopped looking for a permanent location, but high rents, very
specific criteria (must be within easy distance of inner city) and the
stigma of having high-risk youth as tenants have made the search
extremely difficult.

Williams dismisses the stigma issue as patent nonsense. "If you went
into our studio, you'd see the youth take very proprietary care of
everything there."

If the society doesn't find a new home soon, the board fears that the
organization is going to lose kids to the streets.

Olson shakes her head sadly at the prospect. "It's so typical for
disenfranchised and marginalized youth. They feel like they lose
everything that has any meaning for them."