TakingITGlobal: Inspire, Inform, Involve

KAYA’s mandate is to advocate for urban Aboriginal youth within the Greater Vancouver area, encourage and assist urban Aboriginal youth to assert their voices and to create participation within the Aboriginal community to build participation capacity towards healthy progression.

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KAYA’s mandate is to advocate for urban Aboriginal youth within the Greater Vancouver area, encourage and assist urban Aboriginal youth to assert their voices and to create participation within the Aboriginal community to build participation capacity towards healthy progression.

Knowledgeable Aboriginal Youth Advocates Project is to advocate for Aboriginal youth voice, youth representation, and to increase Aboriginal youth participation. This project’s focus is to acknowledge Aboriginal youth perspectives and to assert those opinions in various processes and services that pertain to aboriginal youth to better meet the needs of those services within the community. The project encourages youth voice and assertiveness to develop valuable communication skills and decision-making skills from an informed Aboriginal perspective.

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Much of KAYA’s work involves youth programs, advocacy, consultations, research initiatives, community and policy development, and the development of youth representation within governance structures. KAYA believes that a national model of youth engagement leading to influencing and changing...
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Much of KAYA’s work involves youth programs, advocacy, consultations, research initiatives, community and policy development, and the development of youth representation within governance structures. KAYA believes that a national model of youth engagement leading to influencing and changing governance to be representative of aboriginal youth demographics, based on the right to self-determination. KAYA advocates that this model would be developed with the focus of being youth driven.

KAYA practices models of peer mentorship and youth leadership to better enable youth’s participation in community processes. KAYA utilizes a method of participatory planning and an engagement model that is based on the lived experiences of urban Aboriginal youth.

KAYA’s model is driven by the local experiences of youth as well KAYA has developed international connections with Indigenous youth and governance arenas.

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This project breaks barriers that Aboriginal youth face such as the communication barrier. The project translates the bureaucracy of the processes pertaining to Aboriginal youth services into a language so that youth can understand and make an informed decision. Other objectives of the KAYA...
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This project breaks barriers that Aboriginal youth face such as the communication barrier. The project translates the bureaucracy of the processes pertaining to Aboriginal youth services into a language so that youth can understand and make an informed decision. Other objectives of the KAYA project are to promote and support all aboriginal youth initiatives and to raise awareness of youth friendly ways for urban Aboriginal youth in the greater Vancouver regional district to be informed advocates within their community. Youth friendly processes will encourage young people to take more interest in their community and invest their time, energy; spirit and ideas, making them feel like an active respected member of their community. KAYA will also provide incentives for youth participation to help support Aboriginal youth initiatives and acknowledge youth for their participation.

This progression will be met by having four knowledgeable youth employed to provide training workshops, information sharing for organizations, community events, youth groups, advisory councils, board committees and so on. The KAYA project will create a symbiotic relationship between youth and the issues affecting them.

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