Location: Canada - Dawson Creek, British Columbia; Iqaluit, Nunavut; Vernon/Okanagan Indian Band. Project Description - At ICSC, we are actively engaging youth in community development initiatives both locally in Canada and globally. Our work with youth focuses on youth visioning, planning for the future of their communities, youth strategy development and community asset mapping to identify community strengths, resources and areas for improvement. We also work with communities to develop Youth Friendly City Guides.
Dawson Creek, British Columbia.

An example of one of our recent youth engagement projects was a successful youth-led community asset mapping project that we organized in Dawson Creek, B.C. This project included a workshop for over 60 youth, hiring a youth intern and developing a community asset map and youth vision. Positive results have been reported from Dawson Creek and examples of the outcomes include a “Youth Friendly City Guide” developed by the local youth which includes youth asset maps of services, resources and places for youth, and their youth vision. The content of the guide has been presented to City Council and is expected to be produced in the spring of 2008. The City of Dawson Creek's youth also coordinated “Youth Said” an event that included a photo display at a local art gallery and local youth speakers presenting on the community's assets and their future visions.

In Iqaluit, Nunavut, ICSC ran three youth visioning workshops called “Tools for Change: Actively Engaging Youth.” These workshops, developed by ICSC, are aimed at city planners, elected officials, teachers, youth workers and other service providers interested in engaging youth in community issues. They cover a variety of techniques for involving youth including photo visioning, asset mapping, peer to peer interviewing, model building and creating 'the Tree' model for community foundation building. The offer an introduction to appreciative inquiry and guide participants through exploring the challenges and successes in engaging youth.

The Iqaluit workshops included training educators and youth workers to engage youth, and working directly with youth in activities including photo visioning, asset mapping and model building of the 'ideal' Iqaluit. The youth's ideas from the workshop activities were presented to the City Council and the youth centre is continuing to engage with Iqaluit's youth around sustainability issues.