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Youth Engagement

Not everyone gets an equal start in life. We focus on youth engagement to make sure that all young people have the opportunities and support they need to thrive. Our work leverages the collective knowledge, expertise, and resources of our staff and our extended network of community partners. We support authentic conversations on difficult topics, and create the space for everyone – especially vulnerable groups – to have voice and influence over decisions that affect their lives. Making sure young people are active participants in this work is essential to our approach. 

Through Fostering Change and Fresh Voices, Vancouver Foundation has learned a great deal about the disproportionate barriers to influencing change within our social, civic, and public systems that Indigenous, immigrant, and refugee youth face, compared to many other young people. 

Through this work, we have developed LEVEL, our new youth engagement initiative that builds on these learnings by addressing racial inequity and investing in the leadership of Indigenous and racialized immigrant and refugee young adults, supporting their future work on issues that affect them. 

LEVEL

LEVEL is a youth engagement initiative of Vancouver Foundation that aims to address racial inequity. We do this by investing in the leadership capacity of Indigenous and racialized immigrant and refugee youth and creating more opportunities throughout the non-profit and charitable sector.

Despite being the fastest growing youth populations in B.C., they don’t have the same opportunities as other young people. Race continues to be a factor that hinders their ability to have a say on decisions that impact their lives.

LEVEL empowers these youth by building their capacity to challenge and change those systems that hinder their ability to build a more just world.

FOSTERING CHANGE

The Fostering Change initiative focused on engaging young people with lived experience of transitioning from foster care to adulthood. In 2018, Vancouver Foundation returned the Fostering Change initiative to the community that inspired it and continues through the support of First Call.

 

FRESH VOICES

Fresh Voices is a group of immigrant and refugee youth, originally convened by Vancouver Foundation, who are inspiring each other to make BC a better place for young newcomers. In 2018, Fresh Voices was also returned to the community that inspired it and continues through the support of PeerNetBC.