The Drumbeat Newsletter is a youth driven project that was both conceived and developed by Aboriginal youth from Friendship Centres within British Columbia. It is a multi-dimensional electronic medium to connect urban Aboriginal youth involved with the twenty-four Friendship Centres in the province. It is comprised of an on-line newsletter on the Drumbeat website (www.drumbeat.bc-payc.com), an electronic magazine sent to subscribers email addresses, as well as a very condensed version offered in print and distributed to each of the Friendship Centres.

The Drumbeat is an inclusive forum for Friendship Centre youth to share their stories, ideas, wisdom, challenges, opinions and creativity with one another. It also serves as a platform for exploring youth interests in digital media, arts and culture, writing, journalism, photography, video and other web based tools.

ROLE OF THE BCAAFC
The BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres plays a role to facilitate diverse opportunities for Friendship Centre youth to contribute to the newsletter by providing direction, editorial and content development support for each published edition.

The BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres has funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage Canadian Culture Online Initiative for four editions of the Drumbeat Newsletter. Our first edition was launched on December 19th, 2005.

The newsletter and website will consist of the following sections and features:

• A Spotlight on the Annual Aboriginal Youth Conference
• A spotlight on a Friendship Centre
• A section where Youth can share their opinions on various issues facing aboriginal youth
• A section sharing opportunities available for youth (education, funding etc)
• A section on sports and recreation
• Music and video (songs, video and game will be accessible through the website)
• Poetry and Short Stories
• A column on Youth and Health