2024 Youth Leadership Program
Empowering Emerging Leaders.
How it started?
The 2024 Youth Leadership Program builds upon the success of the fourth British Columbia Coalition Institute (BCCI-4) held in Vancouver in September 2023, which focused on "Youth Leadership for Global Health Equity in an Era of Climate Crisis."
This event brought together a diverse group of participants from five universities across British Columbia, alongside the Centre for One Health Research from Alaska, young professionals from provincial health services authorities and engineering industries, as well as high school students. At BCCI-4 this diverse group of people from our CoP came together to explore the complexities of youth leadership amidst our rapidly changing climate.
Recent Developments
March 2024 Update
Since the program was launched at the beginning of the year, activities have featured both the education system (“Climate Education”) and the health system (“Climate Change and Wellness”), with three activity areas underway:
A. Events:
The first of a monthly series of events began with a February 21st webinar presented by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Centre for One Health Research (COHR) team including Arleigh J. Reynolds DVM Director, Alisa Alexander MD Deputy Director and Kelly Nicholson MPH Program Administer.
The focus was: “One Health Community and Strength-based Approaches to Engaging and Supporting Indigenous and Rural Youth in Research and Education”. The main audience was an engaged group of Grade 12 students in Victoria’s Claremont Secondary School (Institute for Global Solutions-IGS) program.
The next event will be a hybrid conference on March 22 and 23 at Trinity Western University on the theme: “Planetary Health: Protecting and Sustaining the Well-being of our Ecosystems”. The conference website is: https://www.planetaryhealthtwu2024.ca .
B. Resources:
Relevant publications and other resources (such as websites) are being collected under both major themes and will be shared with program participants. Another example is an interdisciplinary course designed for high school students on the theme: “Climate and Health”.
C. Dialogues:
Reflecting the overall program goal “to identify and support youth leadership”, we plan to conduct a series of dialogues (focus groups) with “youth leaders” located in the various locations (“hubs”) that are participating in the program. Guided by questions such as: “How are you currently engaged in climate action? What are you learning about leadership? Are you encountering specific challenges or gaps—if so, what are they? What supports do you need?”, the insights from each dialogue will be captured. The intent is to integrate key insights into a resource (reports, presentations) that will be progressively shared with program participants, likely leading to planned events later in the year.
Looking ahead, program reports will be shared widely and will also be available here (Coming Soon).
Left to right the people are: Joanna Linger, Maren Tait, Mark Neufeld.