In April, the Children and Youth Planning Table of Waterloo Region joined the Landon Pearson Resource Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights (LPC) in Carleton University, Ottawa, for its 2025 Child Rights Academic Network (CRAN) meeting.
Through annual CRAN meetings, the LPC brings together a range of professionals from academia and community organizations who are dedicated to children’s rights. Together, they collaborate to develop and implement actions that address issues important to children and young people. The theme for this year’s meeting was Building our Communities of Care.
Goranka Vukelich (former Co-Chair of the CYPT), Jahmeeks Beckford (Play Lead) and I got a chance to share our experiences using LPC’s Shaking the Movers (STM) framework for child engagement for the first time.
CYPT partnered with both the LPC and the International and Canadian Child Rights Partnership (ICCRP) to pilot the Shaking the Movers Waterloo Region: Child Voice Project on April 5, 2025. Together with other colleagues across Canada who had also organized STM workshops, we reflected on the valuable insights children shared about a caring community. We also considered the challenges raised, suggested solutions, and the calls to action by young people. The climax of the CRAN experience for me was the collaborative session we had to brainstorm and finalize a communiqué to be shared with G7 leaders about the concerns of children and youth. It’s inspiring to see an immediate opportunity for the voices of young people from different corners of Canada to reach the ears of global leaders. And the voices of Waterloo Region children get to be a part of it!
Apart from discussing our Shaking the Movers Report and sharing about our great youth engagement work in Waterloo Region, we also got a chance to connect with great people who are doing similar work across Canada and internationally.
Participants at the CRAN meeting appreciated Waterloo Region’s pilot project as it brought perspectives from children aged 6-8, which was the youngest group out of all the 2025 STM workshops across the country. The activities our youth facilitators created to engage the children were also a delight. After sharing our presentation of the STM workshop on day one, we were invited to the STM 2026 mapping meeting to share our insights on the direction of the next STM.
The Ottawa CRAN meeting was certainly an inspiration and validation of our work to keep amplifying and advocating for the voices of children and youth in our community.
Absolutely thankful for all children, youth, families, and partner organizations who work together to make CYPT’s work effective in our community.
Solami Okunlola
Child Engagement in Systems Lead
Children and Youth Planning Table of Waterloo Region