Over the years, we have been doing many fun and exciting things and youth from across Turtle Island (aka Canada) have noticed. Indigenous youth often ask us: “How did you start A7G” or “How could I do this in my community”. So we’re writing this toolkit to answer those questions!

We decided with the help of many other amazing youth groups we have relationships with to create a toolkit on how to create a youth group as well as wise practices to be shared amongst each other to help build the best communities we can.

There is no exact way to do this work, it will look different in every community. These are just helpful tips and wise practices to get you where you need to go.

Indigenous youth continue to carry the weight of their communities and the intergenerational effects of colonial trauma. Despite this unfair burden, Indigenous youth are finding ways to care for and love their communities; youth are finding ways to support one another, grieve with one another and thrive together.

The true amount of labour that goes into making healthy and safe communities can never truly be measured. This toolkit is simply the tip of the iceberg and more wise practices and innovative ways will continue to add to the collective knowledge of everyone that participated in this toolkit.

The labour and love of this toolkit was created by years of relationship building among a network of Indigenous youth, aunties, uncles, unties, protectors and knowledge keepers. Relationships are not transactional and take time to build. Relationships help us learn and support us when we need it. Relationships are reciprocal and require care to maintain.

With this toolkit and many additional pieces of research, report writing and on-the-ground work of Indigenous youth, youth groups and collectives, we will continue to advocate for the full implementation of TRC 66. The amazing work that has guided this toolkit deserves to be honoured and acknowledged because this work saves lives.

For this toolkit, we used several unique approaches such as a literature review, our lived experiences, interviews with unique youth groups and projects, and we hosted three webinars with experts on topics like Community Building, Peer-to-Peer Support and Life Promotion.