La Maison des Jeunes de la Cotes des Neiges

• La Maison des Jeunes de Côte-des-Neiges est une place pour les 11 à 17 ans de diverses groupes culturels pour relaxer, jouer et échanger. 
• La Maison des Jeunes de Côte-des-Neiges is place for all youth between the ages of 11 to 17. It offers cultural events, relaxation, play, and exchange with other members.

Local/Provincial

all youth between the ages of 11 to 17 (specifically those of lower socioeconomic status)

In the early 80’s various community groups developed a pilot project known as Nova jeunes. They felt that there were little facilities and resources for local youth. The success of this summer project eventually led to the creation of the Maison de Jeunes de la Côte-des-Neiges Inc. The Maison de Jeunes began running services in 1983. In 1986 the corporation purchased a building on De Courtrai which is still used to this day for our programs. In 1995 we began running a program for the City of Montreal called Jeunesse 2000. Jeunesse 2000 services are offered at the Chalet Kent. The City furnishes the Chalet to us in order to develop additional resources for youth. The Maison has become an important resource in the area . It is a constant battle to maintain our visibility and support from individuals and groups because of the informality of our services and our limited resources. It is for this reason that we must insure that the quality of our services remains high and faultless. Some would believe that youth should not be given as many opportunities in relation to their recreational time and that structure is the only way in which to prevent delinquency. We counter this notion and maintain our staying power by being visible in the community by sitting on a number of tables and committees. We equally incite our youth to develop innovative projects and to become involved within their community.

• Established: Maison des Jeunes (1983), La Maison des Jeunes de Côte-des-Neiges (1995)
• Umbrella Organization: Maison des Jeunes and Jeunesse 2000

video production

music production

live performance

web production

Learn about community life, democracy, promote autonomy and a take charge attitude towards life, defend and promote the rights of youth.

The youth are privileged and responsible for giving feedback and bringing up ideas to the team and the board of directors. The youth should participate in committees and sub committees and generally give input on all levels of the administration of the organization. The center organizes workshops, live events, offers sound recording/producing facilities. It is often involved with various cultural, school and university activities in the city such as the following:

Mapping Memories: Digital Media Workshop
This was a ten week course that took place at Cote-des-Neiges Youth Center in Fall 2008. The course trained youth with refugee experience in video, peer interviews and digital imaging. The resulting short video, “Mapping Memories: Youth Media Workshops” documents the process. The course was a collaboration between Maison des jeunes Côte-des-neiges, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and “Mapping Memories.”

The six youth who completed the course reflected on their family, friends, communities, schools, passions, concerns, and hopes for the future. In addition to learning valuable media production skills they had the opportunity to share their experiences with each other.

Roots to Rap With
No Bad Sound is a dynamic group of young hip hop artists who use their music to communicate what is important about their cultural roots and what goes on in the neighborhood that brings them together, Cotes-des-neiges. Lokita, is from the Dominican Republic, Vin is from Vietnam, and Jay Cee and Kemj are both from the Philippines and when working together on their music they bring their home cultures into a new harmony

Studio NoBadSound was created in 2007 as an initiative of the Maison des Jeunes de la Côte-Des-Neiges. It was developed with the intention of offering young aspiring musicians a venue where they could develop their musical talents and express themselves artistically. The studio is located in Côte-des-Neiges (the most multicultural neighborhood in Montreal) and includes a small recording studio, a rehearsal space, and acts as a performance venue as well. It offers the youth of the neighborhood a wide variety of music based workshops each week which include beat boxing, rapping , writing lyrics, voice lessons, music production, DJ and performance skills.
In 2009, it began producing music of professional quality which could then be released on record. This initiative offered the young members of the studio the opportunity to work directly with the staff (who all have musical backgrounds themselves) to create, record, and develop musical projects that express conscious lyrics and thought provoking view points.
Studio NoBadSound’s debut project is a 6 track EP titled, ”The NoBadTape Vol. 1″, which features 5 young Hip-Hop artists between the ages of 15 and 18 years old from CDN ( Lokita, Outsider, Jay-Cee, Vinh-Set, and Kem-J ) who joined forces over several months to create the group NBS CREW. These young talents express themselves in 4 languages ( French, English, Spanish, and Tagalog) and explore various subjects that are close to their hearts including : Love ( LOVE ), Unity ( Be Yourself ), the neighborhood of CDN( King of the day ), and simply the music that inspires them ( What We Love To Do). The musical production on the album is provided by two of the studio’s animators(Syde Barrow, the studio director, music producer and French Dj and TR3S, a Montreal based music producer of Moroccan descent). The record also includes the talents of Lou Piensa and Meduza from Nomadic Massive and the vocals of Def, a Senagalese singer from the group Prodiges Galsen and DJ PH from Marseille, France.

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