Advancing the Possibilities of Youth-Led Organizing

Young people continue to play a pivotal role in social and political movements, leading change-making efforts in communities across Ontario. Youth organizing “embraces both individual development and social change”*, but how can we become adult allies and meaningfully support youth-led movements?

YouthREX is excited to co-present this engaging, youth-led conversation on advancing the possibilities of youth-led organizing with Leading in Colour.

Youth civic engagement goes beyond volunteerism and political participation, and young people are taking leadership roles to amplify their voices and the experiences and issues that are critical to their peers. Recognizing and supporting this work is essential to engagement that facilitates positive youth development and authentic youth participation and advocacy.

Together, we will explore:

• why and how young people get involved in organizing;
• what issues are driving their current activism;
• the benefits of organizing for youth;
• the limitations and possibilities of youth engagement; and
• how adults can become allies in support of youth leadership.

This event will be hosted and facilitated by Lidia Abraha, freelance journalist and YouthREX's former Communications & Digital Engagement Associate, and Robin Tonbazian, YouthREX's Research & Evaluation Associate. Our confirmed guests to date include:

• Habon Ali, Leader & Advocate
• Peter Cohen, Organizer, Climate Justice Durham
• Serisha Iyar, Founder & Executive Director, Leading in Colour
• Sarah Jama, Co-Founder, Disability Justice Network of Ontario
• Fae Johnstone, Executive Director, Wisdom2Action
• Caleb Yohannes, Founder & Director, 1919 Magazine

This event will also feature a live spoken word performance by Rare The Poet. Learn more about all of our guests on our website. (View the webinar outline by clicking on the 'Access the event' button once you've registered!)

We will use Zoom for this webinar. Live transcription/closed captioning will be made available for all participants, and any presentation slides will be shared by email before and after the event. You will receive the link to join the live webinar by email at least two days before the live event. All of our webinars are recorded and archived on YouthREX's Knowledge Hub.

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Learn More on YouthREX's Knowledge Hub

Toolkits:

• Braiding Grassroots Wisdom: A Toolkit to Start and Share Wise Practises Among Indigenous Youth Groups and Collectives (Assembly of Seven Generations, 2022)
• Youth Engagement Toolkit (Future North, 2021)
• Being Y-AP Savvy: A Primer on Creating & Sustaining Youth-Adult Partnerships (ACT for Youth, 2010)

Reports:

• Centering Youth Voices: Visions of Personal & Community Wellness (New Leaf Foundation, 2022)
• Canada’s First State of the Youth Report: For Youth, with Youth, by Youth (Government of Canada, 2021)
• Hopeful Resilience: The Impacts of COVID-19 on Young Ontarians (Young Ontarians United, 2021)
• #HearNowON – Student Voices on Mental Health: Final Report (School Mental Health Ontario & Wisdom2Action, 2019)
• *Youth Organizing: Expanding Possibilities for Youth Development (Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, 2003)

YouthREX:

• Critical Youth Mentorship: A Youth Work Teach-In | Part 1 & Part 2 (Videos, 2022)
• Ways to Promote Youth Empowerment (Factsheet, 2022)
• Six Practice-Based Strategies for Centering Youth in Pandemic Recovery Efforts (Evidence Brief, 2021)
• Meaningful Youth Engagement to Advance Global Change (Factsheet, 2020)
• Youth Engagement Collection

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Leading in Colour is a community organization exclusively by and for racialized youth under the age of 30. Our goal is to train young leaders in activism-based skills that they can use to advocate for themselves and their communities, through peer-to-peer knowledge sharing.

Youth Research and Evaluation eXchange (YouthREX) is a province-wide initiative based at the School of Social Work at York University. Our Mission is to make research evidence and evaluation practices accessible and relevant to Ontario’s grassroots youth sector through capacity building, knowledge exchange, and evaluation leadership. Our Vision is an Ontario where shared knowledge is transformed into positive impact for all youth.