The Youth Food Network;

A Network of Youth with a Passion for Food

Mission

(what we're all about)

To hold space for, offer resources for, and inspire youth to engage in their food systems and communities while exploring good food. 

Mandate

(how we make the magic happen)

We aim to engage youth in their food systems by hosting workshops, distributing event invitations, holding annual conferences and quarterly meetings, and more. 

Youth Engagement Policies

Storytelling

While explaining projects, or concepts, we try our best to include the art of storytelling. This can be through voice, images, or any other form. We go by this policy because we believe that stories hold deeper meaning and honour individual and cultural perspectives.  

Safety

We will always strive to hold the safest space possible; physical safety, emotional safety, and cultural safety included. Some subjects we bring to the table can challenge perspective, but within those conversations we talk about how different the feeling of discomfort and being unsafe are. To us, feeling safe means your needs can be met, your voice can be heard, and you know you have people to support you.

Respect

Having respect for each other means we can work collaboratively and without conflict. We can listen and know we can be heard. When conflict does arise, we seek help to maintain each other's safety. 

Perspective

One important part of growing and being a youth, is discovering different perspectives. Our programs and events will always encourage this and hold a safe space to do so. Honouring each other’s perspectives, and knowing that one can share their own is our priority. 

Diversity

The Youth Food Network is constantly working on decolonizing and deconstructing ethnocentrism (blog post for this term coming soon). We hope to create a network of youth that enjoy eating different cultural foods, that have different ideas of what food hubs are, and that want to pursue different good food initiatives. To put it simply, we hope to hold the space for a multicultural discussion on food, since food is at the centre of culture.

Accessibility

We try our best to make all of our programs and activities accessible to all youth living in the region. One way that we do this, is we do our best to host free events and programs. Coming to our events and engaging in the network should always be physically, and mentally accessible to youth in the CRD. We are here to break down barriers, not to create them.