The Canadian Community Economic Development Network, partnered with Pacific Community Resource Society, has worked with youth to develop local community action plans. The action plans address the human resource needs of employers and seek to find solutions to youth employment issues in urban settings.
Youth (aged 15-30 years old) have worked together with community mentors to assess their communities and the issues related to the needs of employers. They have created workshops to bring together stakeholders, business owners and other makers of change to find solutions to these challenges.
Each community has different needs and challenges as did the communities involved in these projects, and so the process looked slightly different in each community. The Communities delivered their project through small brainstorming sessions, focus groups, strategic meetings and two large planning sessions involving broader community members. The planning sessions brought together youth, businesses, community stakeholders and other members of the community. Through the planning sessions communities have identified issues affecting the human resource needs of employers and have identified opportunities to meet these needs through a community economic development approach.
This resource manual compiles materials and tools from CCEDNet and our community Partners that have been created throughout this project to help you and your organization successfully deliver youth focused and youth led projects in your community. Through the tools found in this toolkit the communities were able to prepare themselves and learn from the challenges to make change in their communities.
