YOUTH-LED PROJECTS
Learn and share about food systems.
Build relevant, transferable skills.
Explore career options in the food and agriculture sectors.
The primary goal of our youth-led projects is to support Ontario high school age youth in food systems learning and leadership development while exploring career options in the agriculture and food sectors. As it stands, most of today’s young people are largely unaware of how food is produced, processed, distributed, and disposed of.
The reality:
The average Canadian farmer is now 55 to 59 years old
1 in 8 people in Canada hold jobs in food-related industries
There are chronic and acute shortages in qualified workers within the agri-food sector across Canada
So, youth must be encouraged to see viability in food careers, and in the vast potential for increasing the sustainability of our food systems through these career options. Youth also need opportunities to meaningfully connect with peers and potential mentors AND space to identify and develop practical, transferable skills.
Did you know that there are hundreds of careers that directly or indirectly influence our food systems in Canada? Or that an increasing number of emerging food systems careers require advanced skills or education?
For most high school students, the answer is no.
So we asked:
How can a young person pursue an agricultural or food sector career without sufficient knowledge of our food systems, without their own skill and leadership development, and without anyone in this sector to turn to for information?
Our various projects work separately and in conjunction with one another to achieve our objectives. Staff facilitate youth-led roles, providing resources and supporting self-directed learning, skill and leadership development, and career exploration. Below are some of the highlights:
Inquiry and Communications: Peer-Led Food Media Creation
Each of our media creation projects is designed with and for youth to autonomously select food systems-related topics of interest or importance to them, and to undertake research to develop resources for communicating what they have learned with their peers.
THE BLOG
Our youth-led blog is made up of regularly released posts that are written, edited, designed, and published by youth volunteers. Visit the blog
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Media Content Creators create and publish posts on our Instagram page, for their peers to like, share, and learn from. Visit the YFS Instagram page
LEARNING MODULES
Currently an internal project only available to youth who participate in the program, the Food Systems Learning Modules are co-designed and curated by youth as a way for new volunteers to gain a strong foundation of knowledge about Canadian agri-food. The Modules will be made available publicly in the near future!
Career Learning and Mentorship: Food Leader Interview Series
Our Food Leader Interview Series, “What Do You Bring to the Table?”, connects youth with people working in food systems careers to learn about paths for education and employment, and share what they have learned in a video interview series on YouTube, podcast series, and career profile infographics. Our staff support youth as they explore their interests in future food systems work, and connect them with mentors working with these careers. Youth develop interview questions, connect with mentors for interviews, and assist in the editing and promoting of the recorded interviews. Youth then take the lead in transforming the videos into audio podcast episodes and infographics for peer-to-peer multimodal learning.
Visit the Interview Series page
Combining Learning & Action: Youth Food Market and Seed Stewardship
Youth Market Leaders plan and organize a series of pop-up produce markets in Waterloo Region each summer. Market Leaders maintain and harvest school food garden plots, source produce from local farms and food businesses, collaboratively conduct community research to determine pricing, and promote and staff affordably-priced market stalls.
Learn about the 2024 Youth Food Market
The Garden Workshop Series, encourages broader and deeper learning in local food production and food security, in collaboration with community partners. Youth participants spend time in face-to-face garden activities with their peers and adult mentors, where they build relationships, collaborate, and solve problems in real time.
Check out the 2022, 2023, and 2024 Garden Workshop Series!
New for 2024-2025, the Youth Seed Stewardship (YSS) project brings a group of youth together as the co-creators and carers of a brand new inter-school seed library. This library allows schools across Waterloo Region to access free seeds and support. Seed Stewards connect with each other and adult allies around seeds and local food. They are leaders in school-based food production efforts in the Region by enabling these very important inputs – seeds! – to be collected, nurtured, and distributed each year.
Are you a high school student looking for ways to get involved? Each of our projects works within a youth-led model, and there are a number of year-round remote and seasonal in-person opportunities for involvement. Plus, you can get some community service hours by joining us!
From April 2021 to December 2024, we have directly engaged over 415 youth volunteers across Ontario in our youth-led projects. Here’s some of what they had to say about their work with us:
Volunteering at Youth in Food Systems these past two months has significantly impacted my life [..] Through my role as a Social Media Content Creator, I have made posts about food literacy, gardening tips, and environmentally friendly actions with my peers, and I have, at the same time, educated myself and others to take better care of the world around us. I feel that the effort that Youth in Food Systems is putting in to encourage environmental sustainability is making an extremely positive impact on all volunteers and school associated, and this should be continued in hopes of a brighter future.
If you are a person interested in making a monetary contribution, you can do so below. We appreciate the support in helping to ensure that our program can continue to operate.