Organizers with a new youth-based initiative are hoping to help build the futures and careers of the next generation of those in the region.
The Communities Building Youth Futures (CBYF) is a movement that looks at the hurdles young adults and youth face to help initiate changes in the city. They hope by 2023, they will see an increase in high school graduation rates, the rate of students in Grande Prairie furthering their education, and improved health and wellness amongst young adults in the region.
CBYF Leadership table co-chair Vonn Beaulieu says youth between the ages of 15 and 30 are the core voices of the initiative. She adds members within the movement work in action groups that focus on employment, evaluation, education, and health and wellness.
“It’s such a cool dynamic because there are co-chairs with these action teams and they all have their own goals and their own aspirations and they all kind of convolute within the leadership table so we all get to report back on it and reflect on all of the work they are doing together.”
Beaulieu believes since the initiative aims to build youth careers and futures, it’s crucial to ensure there are younger members at the core of the foundation.
“Even at our leadership table, we have the co-chair positions and one of the requirements is to be a youth because we need that voice to be at the center.”
CBYF Leadership table co-chair Krista Hurta says the John Howard Society is the backbone of the movement. She adds after receiving funding from the federal government and Tamarack Institute roughly a year ago, they started by bringing together business and non-profit and government and education to talk about what’s going on in Grande Prairie.
Hurta says their research showed that in Grande Prairie, 16 per cent of individuals between the ages of 20-24 are without a high school diploma, a growing unemployment rate by nearly 10 per cent in the last year, and a lower than average high school completion rate of over 75 per cent.
She says they hope to see changes in those statistics throughout the region.