On May 10, 2025, we hosted our 3rd Annual Youth Impact and Action Summit in collaboration with Smart Waterloo Region (SWR)!
Taking place at Communitech, this youth-only event brought together over 80 young people from across Waterloo Region for a full day of playing with the 2023 Youth Impact Survey data and understanding it so that we can figure out what actions youth want to see in the community.
Welcome to the Youth-nited Nations!
This year’s theme was inspired by the United Nations, with participants “traveling” around the world to different “countries” representing the nine dimensions of child and youth well-being from UNICEF Canada’s Index of Child and Youth Well-Being. Youth visited lands like “Participatoria” (We are participating), “Learnlantis” (We are learning), and “The Isle of Belonging” (We belong.) Each station was a human-sized board game where youth would compete in teams to reach the end first while brainstorming solutions tochallenges seen in the 2023 Youth Impact Survey data.
Youth participants explored important topics like youth involvement in decision-making, mental and physical health supports, community resources, and more. Then, at the end of the day, they took their favourite ideas from all the “countries” and build their own dream country — one that reflected the ideal place for young people to live.
Journey to the Data in Action Report
Now that the summit is over, we’re compiling all the ideas shared by youth and combining them with what we’ve heard in other places like:
- the qualitative responses at the end of the Youth Impact Survey
- sense-making sessions where youth have helped us interpret the data
When all of this comes together, we will have a comprehensive list of actions that young people want to see happen in Waterloo Region. From there, we’ll work alongside youth and adult partners to narrow down the ideas into the top priorities that our community can coordinate around and turn into real action.