Young people from Winnipeg's inner city are about to confront racism and prejudice head-on - and the tools they'll be using to do so are deceptively simple.

The Youth Peacebuilding Project, a new initiative believed to be the first of its kind in Canada, will combine structured conversations, art, sports and outdoor recreation in hopes of fostering healthy relationships between 14- to 16-year-olds from the city's core-area Aboriginal, newcomer and mainstream communities.

On Aug. 24, 50 teens from these three groups will head to Manitoba Pioneer Camp on Shoal Lake for a week-long retreat. Joining them will be 12 adults trained in conflict resolution, and 20 youth mentors who will act as role models and camp counsellors.

"The idea is that we bring together three different identity groups.... in a safe place where they're able to build relationships, get to know each other and also talk about difficult issues," says Noëlle DePape, executive director of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba (IRCOM).

"A big part of this is perspective-sharing and trying to build understanding between these groups with the hope of creating a more inclusive, holistic society," she says.

DePape came up with the idea for the project while working in the U.S., India and Pakistan with Seeds of Peace, a program begun in 1993 by American journalist John Wallach that helps youth from conflict zones around the world work through their mistrust of one another.

"I started to think about my own local context and the history that we have here in Winnipeg, and all these different groups coming together and the multicultural society we're trying so hard to build," DePape says.

Winnipeg youth from different identity groups often have no interaction with each other, she says. For others - particularly those living in Winnipeg's inner-city, an area that's become more racially diverse in recent years - any interactions that do take place are negative ones.

"Stereotypes develop and misunderstandings about one another develop, and at the most extreme, you have Aboriginal and newcomer gangs," she says.

"In a way, this is preventative peace-building - this is looking at... issues that are not as visible but that exist and are ready to erupt, and it's taking them and trying to deal with them before they're at a place where they're uncontrollable."

The one-year pilot project was financially kick-started by a $45,000 grant from the United Way last fall and is expected to cost about $90,000 by the time it wraps up in November. Collaborating agencies include IRCOM, the Canadian Mennonite University's Institute for Community Peacebuilding, the YMCA-YWCA of Winnipeg, the Manitoba Multicultural Resource Centre, Welcome Place and Ka Ni Kanichihk.

It was through their involvement with the latter two organizations that David Fanhbulleh, 18, and Jeff Sutherland, 20, learned about the project. Both will be youth mentors at this summer's gathering.

Their life experiences are different: Fanhbulleh, originally from Liberia, immigrated to Winnipeg in 2006 from Nigeria with his family; Sutherland grew up in Northern Manitoba on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation and moved to the city by himself when he was 15. But the two young men have similar motivations for getting involved.

"My first time in school, some people didn't like the way I was," Fanhbulleh says. "The first time I walked into a classroom, everybody just looked at me and I felt like, 'I don't belong here...' I just had to play along - like, they don't talk to me and I don't talk to them."

Sutherland can relate to that sense of isolation. Being half-Native, he says he never felt fully accepted by his peers up North or by his classmates in Winnipeg.

"I was by myself all the time. Exclusion really did suck for me," he says.

Now, Sutherland says he wants to help other youth "build bridges, not burn them" and while he's not sure what to expect at the upcoming retreat, he knows what he'd like to see happen.

"I'd just like for the communities of Winnipeg to actually get together and see the greatness that everyone has - come together and just share, and not judge who's better or anything 'cause really, no one's really better," he says.

For more information about the Youth Peacebuilding Project or to take part in the August 24-31 gathering, call 953-3862.