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Youth-led Community Action Projects

Funded Projects

Dog Jog

Ashley McLaughlin loves animals and she set out to make a difference on Grand Manan (New Brunswick). There were many abandoned animals and strays so she held a dog jog to raise money for spaying and neutering some of these animals.

However, having raised $1,400 she didn't just spend it, she held a community forum to find out from the community how this money should be spent. Should they concentrate on strays or the animals owned by people living in poverty?

This was more than a great grant and its effects continue today, as Ashley has been instrumental in the creation of the Grand Manan Animal Welfare League. More...

Limberlost

London's Youth Advisory Council recently undertook a project, working with a forgotten community in their city called Limberlost. This neighbourhood centered around a townhouse complex of about 160 units with many new immigrant families and many children. Limberlost had a youth group working on small projects like homework help and recreational type activities. This youth group consisted of mostly young highschool to older elementary school youth. More...

Guitar Club

The funding from the Kitchener-Waterloo YAC allowed the Guitar Club to purchase five new guitars, a drum kit and a bass guitar that allowed expansion of the existing club by 100 per cent. The Club now has over 30 members aged 13-17 from the Mill-Courtland Neighbourhood of Kitchener. Youth have said that the Club has had a very positive effect on them, giving them more confidence and an increased ability to take risks. Parents have commented on the remarkable progress their children have made in a short time.

Hip Hop Summer

A Hip Hop Summer, supported by the Ottawa YAC, is designed to bring together the youth of Britannia Woods to share their love for music and express their emotions and feelings through hip-hop. Two-hour lessons will be provided once a week for six week periods.

The dance lessons will culminate in a performance at the Annual Youth Fundraising BBQ and will also involve other groups in the community. For example, costumes are going to be made by the ESL sewing class. Overall, the aim is to create self-esteem, trust, communication and self-improvement.

Festival de theatre jeunesse en Acadie

Festival de theatre jeunesse en Acadie, supported by the Conseil consultative de jeunes de la Peninsule acadienne, provides 275 grade 6 to 12 students with an opportunity to perform at the Youth Theatre Festival. These students will represent 11 theatre groups from francophone communities. The festival will allow them to perform in front of a public and show off their artistic skills.

Each performance will be judged by professionals and all participants will receive a copy of the judge's constructive criticisms. During their three days at the festival, participants will also attend workshops allowing them to develop other artistic skills.

Pete's Place

Pete's Place, to be held at the Church of St. Peter parish hall, has been planned as an after school venue, in east central Hamilton. Supported by the Hamilton YAC, Pete's Place provides a safe location where inner city youth who have been displaced from their family home environment, and are attending secondary school, can come to seek homework assistance, emotional encouragement and lifestyle support from volunteer teens, mentors.

A group of eight local teenagers, ages 14 to 18, have planned to support this project as volunteers. The group has committed to a fund raising goal of $1,000 to purchase food, personal care products and basic clothing necessities to offer support to fellow students who are at risk of academic failure due to homelessness or other poverty issues.

Aboriginal/Ukranian Cultural Exchange

Mackenzie Middle School is putting on an Aboriginal/Ukranian Cultural Exchange. Supported by the Dauphin YAC, the exchange will give students an opportunity to share their cultures through food, dance, and traditions, thus hopefully encouraging respect, understanding and appreciation of each other's cultures. By students teaching students about their ethnic differences and similarities, there is the hope that eventually racism will be eliminated.

Seeing Red Campaign (Canadian Red Cross)

The Seeing Red Campaign, hosted by the Canadian Red Cross, started in January 2006 by a group of youth volunteers who share a desire to raise the understanding of the humanitarian impacts of HIV/AIDS at the local level.

The Seeing Red Campaign, supported by the Surrey YAC, aims to promote awareness in the community about the causes, consequences and humanitarian injustices of HIV/AIDS here at home and around the globe. To accomplish this, Seeing Red is hosting two events: a Call to Artists, and a Youth Challenge which will challenge artists and youth to take action in fighting the war against HIV/AIDS.

Kelowna CANstruction

Kelowna CANstruction is a project funded by the Central Okanagan Youth Foundation, in which students worked together as a team to build an Ogopogo structure out of cans of food and other non-perishable items. These items were donated to the Kelowna Food Bank upon completion of the Canstruction and public display.

Summer Bound Beachfest

Summer Bound Beachfest, a project put on by the Surrey Foundation YAC, is a youth-led networking, exposure and skill development event. It provided an opportunity to bring community members and Canadian Heritage Youth-led Community Action Project grant recipients together to evaluate projects and to kick-off the youth initiatives.

Skateboard Ramp Construction

The Skateboard Ramp Construction project, funded by the Dauphin YAC, is totally reliant on volunteers and the youth who use this facility. This project will benefit the whole community as it will provide a safe place for youth to practice on the ramps with their skateboards and bikes. This project has been designed, researched and built by the youth themselves. It will also benefit the youth in that they will learn leadership skills and pride in accomplishing a project from beginning to end.

Snack Attack

Snack Attack, supported by the Hamilton YAC, has the goal of providing a safe, neutral, comfortable and enjoyable child-friendly environment at the Hamilton YWCA. Through providing a nutritious snack, the goals are:

1) to enhance social opportunities between the children and their visiting parent/relative

2) to increase overall well being of parents and children in poverty by providing snacks within at least two food groups, and

3) to provide volunteers with a tangible way to make a difference to the children and parent participants.

HIV Support Group

HIV Support Group, supported by the Ottawa YAC, plans to address the need for a support group for HIV positive youth. Youth infected with HIV will be offered a chance to meet other youth who are facing similar challenges and issues. It will be a safe, confidential place for youth to gain confidence and build connections in the community. Youth will also be provided with access to different workshops, activities, and referrals to other services such as dieticians, doctors and lawyers.

Centre Plein Air de Caraquet

Centre Plein Air de Caraquet supported by the Acadian Peninsula YAC in New Brunswick serves to initiate school children between the age of eight and 12 to cross country skiing. There is a special emphasis on helping those from poor families who cannot afford such an activity.

Seventeen sets of cross country skiing equipment were purchased at a cost of $266.18/set. This equipment will remain the property of the applicant and will be available to other youth in the future. Sixteen training sessions (one hour each minimum) will also be given to each youth free of charge as part of this project and these youngsters will take part in the "Jackrabbit competition" as part of a national program by Cross Country Canada.

FortisBC Wild Festival for Youth

In 1999 the Return of the Peregrine Falcon (ROTPF) Society, in collaboration with the City of Kelowna, Okanagan University College, the Regional District of the Central Okanagan, Shaw, CKOV, the Daily Courier and the Ogopogo Rotary Club initiated the FortisBC Wild Festival for Youth to promote environmental responsibility and stewardship to school-aged children.

This year, the Central Okanagan Foundation for Youth has chosen to support this unique event which will provide youth with the opportunity to demonstrate to their peers that they really can do something?significant to benefit the environment.

This year's theme for the Festival is climate change and sustainability, with activities designed to increase delegates' awareness and understanding of the impact that human activities have on the environment.

Intermountain Sport Fishing Enhancement

Intermountain Sport Fishing Enhancement, supported by the Dauphin Community Foundation YAC, is creating a youth-built shelter to be used by school groups, where youth can learn about the sport of fishing.

Youth will be actively participating in the planning, construction and follow-through of the project, which will instill great leadership and pride for those involved. The shelter will be used to share experiences and foster good will among all those participating.

Youth Powered Project

The Youth Powered Project, supported by the Hamilton YAC is designed to promote respect, diversity and self-expression.?The project is built to give teens the opportunity to develop their skills and assets. The project consists of two main parts:

1. A magazine of stories, essays and art by Hamilton teens to be published by the Youth Advisory Group of Hamilton Pulbilc Library (YAG) with the support of the Hamilton Public Library (HPL) and to be distributed free to teens across the city.
2. A series of events to be held at the HPL to expose teens to ideas about writing, art, creativity and the diversity of our community.

Catching the Tynehead Spirit Youth Program

Catching the Tynehead Spirit Youth Program is a free, youth-led summer environmental program that incorporates education, training, environmental stewardship, mentorship and citizenship available to all area youth.

Supported by the BC's Surrey Foundation YAC, this program offers eight stewardship camps in July and August, restoration projects, hatchery tours, and various weekly activities related to the program.

Awareness Day Fair

The Grand Manan Community School Awareness Day Fair, supported by the Fundy YAC in New Brinswick, aims to create awareness and inform youth on the following topics: teen pregnancy, nutrition problems, choices, what to do after school, depression, self esteem, etc. It will also serve to inform the community about the trip local youth took to Alabama. While there, these youth helped with the Hurricane Katrina relief.

"Life and Climb" workshop

Designed in part to dispel negative stereotypes that serve as barriers to the economic and social mobility of Black and Aboriginal youth, the "Lift and Climb" workshop, supported by the Hamilton YAC, will use Hip Hop, an alternative art form, as a catalyst to initiate social engagement and dialogue between racialized youth and the broader community. This workshop is part of the forum, "Community Arts Matters", that aims to use the arts, and more specifically, music, to foster positive self-expression and reconnect racialized youth to their cultural roots. Volunteers are engaged to support the planning and development of the workshop and the facilitation of the day itself.

Touch the Sky Grade 7 Leadership Conference

Research shows young leaders today do not usually have the confidence to continue their leadership during transition to high school. The Touch the Sky Grade 7 Leadership Conference, supported by the Surrey B.C. YAC, is a student-led mentorship day for students in Grade 7. It will focus on identifying young leaders from elementary schools and inspiring them to step up and continue their community efforts in Grade 8.

Parkland School Writing Anthology

The main purpose of the Parkland School Writing Anthology project, supported by the Winkler YAC in Manitoba, is to develop a better relationship between the school and the larger community. An anthology of student writing and illustrative work of students from Kindergarten to Grade 8 will be gathered and published. This publication will then be distributed by students to local businesses, health care facilities and waiting rooms. It will also be used as a teaching tool within the school.