Youth In Action

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TRANSPORTATION

EARN-A-BIKE

If you build it, you can keep it. Earn-a-Bike teaches youth age 12 to 18 how to build a bike. At the end of the program, they’ve developed bike maintenance skills, and get to ride off on their own two wheels. It’s all part of a grand scheme – Pedal Energy Development Alternatives (PEDAL) aims to promote cycling as the way to get around.
www.pedalpower.org/youth_earn_a_bike

GOING GREEN

BEE GREEN

Students from two Vancouver high schools have been busy, building bee “condos” in woodworking class and caring for them in our parks. The program is called Park Pollinators’ Paradise, and it’s a brainchild of the Environmental Youth Alliance that aims to raise awareness about the vital role pollinators play in the ecosystem, and in the food we eat.
www.eya.ca or www.masonbeevancouver.com

SAFETY

LOVE

LOVE can stop the cycle of violence. Leave Out ViolencE (LOVE) is a grassroots program that helps youth age 13 to 19 whose lives have been touched by violence turn it into something positive. They encourage youth to use culture and media to spread messages of anti-violence, and hopefully stop the cycle of violence in their own lives.
www.leaveoutviolence.com

ARTS SCENE

ART AT THE PURPLE THISTLE

In 2001, eight kids got together and created the Purple Thistle, an arts and activism centre in East Vancouver. Run by a youth collective, the Thistle is a place where we can hang out, participate in paid training programs about publishing or community engagement, and dabble in creative experimentation at drop-in programs such as darkroom photography, silk-screening, animation or painting.
www.purplethistle.ca

YOUTH SPACES

A NEW DIRECTION

The door is always open at Directions Youth Services Centre – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Centre serves as a safe urban youth space away from the streets where homeless and at-risk youth can take part in educational, artistic and recreational programs. They also help youth search for housing and employment, and provide hot meals and showers. 

YOUTH VOICE

REEL YOUTH

The Reel Youth Film Festival encourages youth age 19 and under to shine the spotlight on the changes they want to see in our world. From films about growing up in foster care to how First Nations youth are affected by the history of residential schools, the Festival gives our peers the chance to have their work juried by youth and shown across Canada.
www.reelyouth.ca

YOUTH HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS

OPENING DOORS

The Broadway Youth Resource Centre’s supported-housing program rents apartments and sublets them to at-risk youth, to support their transition towards independent living. Their staff liaise with landlords and do everything they can to help youth make the most of this opportunity by providing one-to-one support, life skills and employment training.
www.pcrs.ca

POVERTY - THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR

STEP UP

Step Up is a program that offers social nights for youth, with a purpose. Youth gather at Check Your Head’s Vancouver office to hash through systemic issues that create inequality and poverty in our lives, and come up with solutions. They’ve developed a workshop on the roots of poverty to empower low-income youth and share the message through hip-hop, movies, theatre and more.
www.checkyourhead.org

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING

YOUTH SPOT

Finding work can be a hurdle for young people. Youth Spot has been helping youth find sustainable employment since 2001. Operating on a drop-in basis, Youth Spot provides one-to-one employment assistance, everything from access to their fax machine to help writing cover letters and preparing for job interviews. Youth Spot is operated by the Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House.
www.youthspot.ca

EDUCATION AND LEARNING

TAKE A HIKE

Getting out in nature can be a life-changing experience. Take a Hike is an alternative education program for at-risk youth age 15 to 19 that mixes academics with outdoor adventure, counselling with community involvement. A partnership between Vancouver School Board and Take a Hike Foundation, this program offers a breath of fresh air for youth who have struggled with the system.
www.takeahikefoundation.org

HEALTH AND WELL BEING

HUSTLE :MEN ON THE MOVE

There’s help for male youth hustling on the streets of Vancouver who want to leave the sex trade. HUSTLE: 
Men on the Move provides one-to-one peer and crisis support for these youth. Created by Prostitutes Empowerment, Education and Resource Society, the project aims to increase the overall health and safety of the young men, while preventing sexual exploitation.

www.bccec.wordpress.com or www.peersvancouver.org

CULTURE IDENTITY AND BELONGING

MY CIRCLE

The Immigrant Services Society of B.C. created the Multicultural Youth Circle (MY Circle) to train leaders to run peer-support workshops for fellow immigrants and refugee youth. Over 300 youth have done the training, and many formed Action Teams to work on projects like the video UFO: Unidentified Foreign Object, about hardships newcomers face in Vancouver.
www.issbc.org