Youth for Sustainable Justice

A community-based environmental and social justice youth house called “Youth for Sustainable Justice” will be established in Toronto at first and grow across Canada. Youth for Sustainable Justice will be a place where youth will be involved in environmental projects along with turning the house into a close to zero emissions living space. The youth would be a diversity group of 10 people in each house with requirements as such: Aboriginal, People of Colour, 5 Women, and 5 Men. It is expected that through providing a house for youth that it will be possible to have a direct and positive effect on the well being of the local community.

Youth will have to be involved in a training session that will least 3 days at the beginning. These trainings will help the youth understand the objectives, build bonds within the group and collectively start envisioning projects. The training will happen inside & outside of the house and be run by the 10 youth within the group.

Youth for Sustainable Justice will periodically evaluate the program on

• Helping youth work on passionate projects by reaching out to the environmental and social justice communities.
• The improvement and building of systems in communities around Canada to show a leadership role.
• Showing that youth at the local level can bring a strong voice to the movement.

Major obstacles to youth in the environmental and social justice movements is that they are not provided enough resources to make a decent living. Youth have to work 2 or 3 jobs to even provide for shelter, food, and other necessities. On the other side, environmental and social justice groups are mostly run by adults and the voices of youth are left out of the discussion making. Even when youth are given a voice, most people don't take them seriously. Research shows that youth act now as compared to adults that act later in life.

There are two major goals for the “Youth for Sustainable Justice” and specific objectives within each of the goals.

Goal #1 – To reduce the degree of necessities among youth.

Object ive #1.1 To provide youth with shelter, food, and other necessities

Objective #1.2 To assistant in finding funding to make sure youth have a healthy income.

Goal #2 – To show youth can have a strong voice within the movement.

Objectives #2.1 To provide a space where youth can express all their opinions.

Objectives #2.2 To engage youth with other organizations, unions and the local community to a) demonstrate leadership on the issues and b) take the voice to the people in power.

The primary methods for achieving the goals and objectives for the Project will be:

• Providing a house and centre in the local cities that will become a focal point for youth live and work.

• Creating a youth co-op where they are able to make discussions fast and fair.