Young people have a lot to say, yet too often, don’t have spaces or places to be heard. For some, they are unaware that their voice – anchored in their (and their relations) experiences and aspirations for the future, matters. We need to ensure they know that both themselves, and their vision for their Nations, matters.

In our work, with First Nations, or across Canada, and around the world, we witness when youth are engaged, too often there is a collective of missing voices: those under the age of 20. Many youth forums, conferences, trainings, or other opportunities are focused on who we at Three Things identify as young adults, from 20 – 30 years old.

The voices of First Nations teenagers are often not included in a meaningful way. While we believe it is important for young adults to be heard, and supported, their needs and experiences are different than that of teenagers. Yet, we have been witness to a shift within Nation’s and Treaty organizations, where there is a strong commitment towards elevating the voices of teen aged young people; creating spaces while building capacity and opportunities to be heard.

We’re Listening is a tool to walk together with intention and in a good way to build on what has been done to hear the voices of youth, under the age of 19, and collectively, as adult allies, to lift up, amplify, and act on what those voices are telling us.

Young people have been directly affected by serious external challenges, those anchored in historical hurts and intergenerational harms, and those they are facing today that effect their health and well-being, education, and futures. These challenges include environmental crises, including severe weather events, climate change, effects on hunting and gathering, contaminated waterways and water systems, and development legislation and policies that will effect them directly.

We’re Listening is a collaboration between Three Things Consulting and First Nations, PTO’s, or community organizations who have an interest in creating space for youth to participate in a youth voice, development, and healing process.

This process will connect, build community, provide space for youth share their experiences, identify their needs, and collectively work to create youth led calls for action for the leadership in their Nation, health and other related departments, and all other levels of government, (federal, provincial, municipal), and systems they engage in.

This works when we as adult allies, leaders, and elected officials, say, We’re Listening.

Experience Matters

Having successfully completed a similar project in Atlantic Canada in 2024, working in partnership with the Ulnooweg Indigenous Communities Foundation, we have seen the powerful outcomes that come from this process, on individual youth, families, Nations, and communities. More than 100 Indigenous youth participated in that project, a first of its kind in Atlantic Canada, and the calls to action created by youth, have already resulted in significant responses to the youth voices in Atlantic Canada.

That project came on the heels of Listen Up, a national youth voice process that engaged more than 600 participants in Pathways to Education Canada programs from sea to sea, including the very successful component, The Ever Deadlies, where we heard from – and honoured Indigenous high school graduates from across Canada, all helping shape national policies for the 31 Pathways programs.

Our diverse team at Three Things has the capacity and experience to design safe and supported approaches for youth to speak up and speak out. Together with your team and and other partners you may bring into our Circle, we can collectively lift youth to create lasting change for themselves, their peers and relations, and the Nation overall. Other outcomes include stronger pride in identity and community, greater confidence in youth, healthier decision making of participants, and a greater understanding of the value of being of service in youth.

The project model brings together four areas where Three Things has excelled, anchored in a commitment to creating spaces for youth to be heard:

  • Shared Vision and Agreements
  • Youth Voices and Stories
  • Experiential Youth Development Experience (in person youth gathering authoring calls for action)
  • Lifting the Voices of Youth (youth presentations of youth generated calls to action)

Shared Vision and Agreements

The relationship building between partners and Three Things

The first step of this process is to build connection and a community of care with adult allies within your organization who are interested and committed to lifting the voices of youth. From these discussions, both virtually and in person, we will have a strong shared agreement in how we will move forward, honouring the relationships between partners and the courage of the young people who will participate in the various components of the project.

Youth Voices and Stories

Data Collection

Three Things will generate tools to gather youth voices: via a survey, available both online and paper and a photo / video voice process – where youth are invited to share their experiences and ideas and using popular apps.

With input from partners our focus will be the development of an easy-to-use survey tool, (available both in print and online), that can be used by youth in your community/region in identifying issues they want to see addressed. Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, the survey tool will help both identify and prioritize issues that matter to youth.

The tool would explore both the strengths and challenges seen or experienced by young people. While there is a focus on what might need to change, these tools are also intended to create an understanding of what is working and, from young people’s insights, valuable to them.

The goal is to understand, from the youths’ perspective, what is needed within the community to increase youth voice, to learn about their lived experiences, and learn where things are going well, or could be improved upon. Creating an anonymous online survey allows for the youth who participate the chance to share about and provide a platform for youth to share what they feel, think, and vision for the Nation.

We would provide tools for influencers, (educators, health and youth workers, administration) to engage youth and work to engage those both in and out of the community.

We will also create a tool youth can use to generate further input via video, sharing their ideas and experiences in their own voices.

All the data we collect would be owned by the respective Nations, (when participating youth identify their home Nation), and controlled as a partner in the project, to ensure resources and review processes, and management of the information collected in done in a way that meets their needs and protocol. The data will be held digitally securely by Three Things, with each respective Nation (should multiple Nations partner) would have access to information and data shared by youth members, and at any time can request to the have possession of the data as it relates to their Nation.

It is important to note, in a spirit of transparency: the voices of youth can challenge systems, adults and Nations; the truth telling of their experiences can be difficult to hear and generate concerns of how communities can or might respond. We strongly encourage partners and potential partners to commit to listening to the strengths and challenges with open minds, and not holding back data that might be able to be used to create lasting change.

We would rely on the support from your team , (in particular someone who regularly interacts and has relationships with youth), who would share the survey with students and youth within and outside the community. The messaging would be focused on the opportunity to share what they would like to see happen or changed, what would be helpful in their lives and the potential incentives for participating.

With our team providing communication and social media tools that can be used by your staff, the tools will promote the survey and encourage youth to share it with their peers. Strategic sharing the survey and project will help increase participation numbers, as will providing space and time with access to a computer for the youth to take the survey. We can include having a small team from Three Things visit the community, (or communities), to discuss, promote and encourage engagement of young people.

After three – four weeks for youth to participate, once they survey window is closed, our team will review, code, and analyze what had been shared, generating topics and / or themes that were identified most often by the youth. From there, and in discussion with your team, we would determine the themes for the in-person youth gathering component. Our team will also provide a summary of what had been shared, which areas the youth feel the most improvement/changes may be need, and what the community is doing well to help support their youth/students.

The survey would be used to encourage youth to apply to the next component of the project, the in-person experience to be held in Ottawa, Ontario.

Experiential Youth Development Experience

In person youth gathering authoring calls for action (Ottawa, Ontario)

The team at Three Things, anchored in approaches and knowledge carried for generations by those in our Circle, have designed a series of processes that can be developed and delivered in collaboration with First Nations and community-based organizations. These approaches were used in large scale signature projects, such as Msit No’Kmaq: All My Relations, a partnership project that saw 45 Indigenous youth take part in an almost month-long sail training, leadership development and identity building program that had them sail from Halifax to France. They have been used in our work in education, substance use, child protection, human trafficking, mental health and well-being, and with smaller focused programs and activities.

At the proposed youth Gathering, young people, who are selected through an application process, will be walked through a process that has them share their ideas, experiences and insights and turn those into calls to action. We have a clear understanding that when Indigenous young people have experiences outside their communities and away from the pressures of their lives as young people, that these experiences can be inspiring, motivating, healing, and life shifting.

The team at Three Things have been involved in more than 500 youth gatherings over the past 30 years; from smaller events, such as this proposed in person youth gathering authoring calls for action, to large scale events with 800+ youth.

Our team provides full management of gatherings, including a staffing complement of facilitators, youth workers, Elders and Grandmothers and leaders in youth engagement. With 24 hour supports available, our team ensures a safe space and program components that allow youth to take on meaningful spirit driven work while also having fun, building connections, and developing new skills.

Our team at Three Things would design and lead the recruitment, selection and facilitation of the youth gathering with the support of your team, ensuring youth see the opportunity. Using tested components of our application-based models we would recommend 20 applicants (and 5 alternates) to your team to approve the final selection. We can expand this to 30 youth if desired by your team.

We would work with you to organize travel to / from Ottawa for youth and the accompanying adult allies, and Three Things is responsible for venue management, (including accommodations, meals and meeting spaces), off site community building activities and program design and delivery. We provide travel tools to youth and families, including all required and related releases. In addition, we provide a process report, (print or video), following the gathering.

The primary topic / theme (s) of the gathering will have been influenced by the online survey and discussions with your team.

The outcome of the gathering would include youth led recommendations, calls to action or ideas that could help shape / shift policy and approaches with local leadership, governments, or systems youth are connected to. We expect that key calls to action would be influenced and guided by the young people’s voices via the first step, the survey.

The gathering itself would be anchored in:

  • Ceremony
  • Circles
  • Community Building
  • Capacity Building
  • Content That Matters

We do this by including large and small group activities; discussions using age-appropriate tools, creative spaces, opportunities for intentional play, and culturally related activities or excursions. The program will be developed in a way that at the completion each youth feels that they mattered to the process, their sharing and contribution was important, and they belonged in our community.

All these processes were anchored in the following key beliefs:

Young people need to learn about and truly understand #the3Things, that they matter, they are important, and that they belong, and how #the3Things apply to themselves. To do that most effectively, they need to see respect as an essential part in creating relationships that matter, and that takes time. Our gatherings create the time for that to occur.

The wisdom held by young people matters. Young people’s voices are important, and they deserve and need safer spaces to share their ideas, challenges, hopes, visions, and hurts. The courage they demonstrate needs to be acknowledged by adults listening and acting on what is shared. Being heard is an anchor in the path of healing and leadership development.

Young people are and can be leaders today, not simply ‘tomorrow’s leaders’. Yet they need to build on their own capacity and develop skills that can assist them in being love driven as leaders, speaking out, supporting one and other and to cope with life’s challenges.

Young people need to know who they are – inherently. In doing so, they need to be celebrated for who they are and where they come from, and how truth has guided their peoples for generations. Their roots matter and are the tether between the past, the present and the future. Young people can both feel pride and humility in who they and their people are.

Healing requires honesty, and young people deserve spaces where they can be vulnerable yet safe with an understanding that their path forward doesn’t have to be that of others. They can use what they see, hear, and learn to create meaningful change in the world.

This model will help generate powerful calls to action that will strengthen the the young peoples community as a whole, and create change not only for the youth who participate, but all young people.

Lifting the Voices of Youth

Youth presentations of calls for action in communities and provincially

A final report will be generated with the youth’s calls for action and collaborating with your team we would plan a community event for youth to share these calls in their community. (If other Nation’s partner, we would partner and host one with each Nation). Bringing together leadership, staff, and families, we will honour the youth and create space for them to share their ideas and experiences with the project.

These Lifting the Voice of Youth events, (we have led five of them to date with similar projects), are powerful for the community, and the young people. They have the capacity to build relationships between youth and leaders, both elected and those in various departments, and together, explore how to breathe life into the calls to action.

Your team would engage and work with leadership, schools, and organizations to promote the event and encourage their support in engaging local youth to attend, (travel to/from the event, adult allies etc.)

This event, organized with support from a Kashechewan Health Services team member, and facilitated and led by Three Things, would have a similar process to the in person gathering:

  • Ceremony
  • Community Building
  • Recognize youth who took part in survey and youth who took part in the gathering in Ottawa as they share their Calls to Action
  • Feast and Honouring of Youth

Throughout these events the Three Things Team is building relationships, both with the young people and as important, the your team. Collectively, with our more than thirty years engaging young people and the lessons we have learned and strategies we know to work, along with the community expertise, we will, together, lift the voices of youth.

Deliverables from Three Things

  • Communication tools for project branding ( socials / web-based/email/ video) and for each component
  • Webpage for the project housed at www.3things.ca
  • Youth friendly survey designed and provided in print and online formats
  • Video submission process / tool for youth submissions
  • Analysis of data, both qualitatively and quantitively
  • Survey results snapshot report
  • Equitable selection process for in person gathering resulting in recommendations on 20 youth plus 5 alternates
  • All required consents/ information packages for youth and families traveling to Ottawa
  • Fully designed process and tools for In Person Gathering
  • Full Three Things team to facilitate and provide 24-hour support at In Person Gathering (including Elders, Facilitators, Support Staff)
  • We’re Listening Youth Voices Report with Calls to Action
  • All logistics related to in person gathering
  • Support in planning for Lifting The Voices of Youth event
  • Agenda / Program Lifting The Voices of Youth event
  • Team to facilitate Lifting The Voices of Youth event

Learn more about We’re Listening 2024 here, or contact us to learn more and to set up a time to visit virtually to chat about how we can support your leadership in being ready to say, We’re Listening.