SC Blueprint Project

This project website is intended for our partners as a resource to access resources and tools, build connections with other partners, and share what we are learning.

Project Introduction

This project is coordinated by the Students Commission (lead organization to the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement), a national, charitable youth organization that works to provide, promote and support opportunities for young people from all walks of life to become meaningfully engaged in issues that directly affect them, their peers and their communities. Young people and adults work in a setting that operates under our Four Pillars: Respect, Listen, Understand, Communicate.

We have been awarded funding from Status of Women Canada for a program, entitled the SC Blueprint Project, which addresses violence in young women's lives. Over the next two years, three communities (Saskatoon, Thunder Bay and Toronto) in Canada will participate in the Blueprint Project.Young people between the ages of 12 - 21 will be meeting weekly to learn from one another on the issue of in young women's lives. They will study the issues, make informed decisions about how to communicate what they have learned.

Using the Students Commission's Young Decision Maker Model, each group will decide how to address the issue(s) related to violence in young women's lives in their community. Supported by each community's coordinator and group facilitators, the young people will also explore the issues through gender-based analysis and a community needs assessment, based on existing knowledge and resources regarding violence in young women's lives, local protocols and practices, and need in the specific community. Then they will work to create workshops and develop tools (e.g. posters, newsletters, blogs, videos, workshops) in their communities to inform and influence other young people. In year two of the SC Blueprint Project, youth facilitators from the group will be trained to deliver these tools / workshops to other youth and adults in their community.

Youth and youth coordinators from each community will receive training provided by the Students Commission on Youth Engagement, Youth Facilitation, the Young Decision Makers process and how to work effectively with Adult Allies. Tools will be evaluated by youth and communities and the results will be shared with other communities in Canada. A full evaluation of the project at each site will take place during the full two years.

For more information about the Blueprint Project or the Young Decision Makers Model please contact Sharif Mahdy at 416 597 8297 or at sharif@studentscommission.ca in Toronto.

For a short reflection on what's been going on in Toronto click here.