$60 for the entire series on Zoom
February 11, 1-2 PM ET
Thursdays, March 20 - April 3, 1-2:30 pm ET
1) Intentional Interactions & You(th): Reaching Youth Where They’re At
2) Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Recruit Youth
3) Youth as Decision-Makers: Creating Meaningful Opportunities
*Please note, all registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following the sessions. The recording will be available for 60 days.
As of 2021, there are over 7 million young people in Canada between the ages of 15 and 29, and they are the country's most diverse and educated demographic group. As youth experts and youth, we know the power and value of activating youth in our work. Across all sectors, we depend heavily on the next generation's innovation, creativity, and ingenuity to animate our work and shape and define the world of tomorrow.
Whether you’re hoping to reach youth as staff, clients, volunteers, supporters, donors, board members, or maybe even your next Executive Director or CEO, you will need a comprehensive and targeted strategy to reach, engage and retain young people. After working with youth for 20 years, Apathy is Boring has developed the Youth Friendly Program to help organizations invest their time, energy and resources to uplift and activate young people in their spaces.
February 11, 1:00-2:00 PM ET
Presenters: Sydney Penner and Erika De Torres
This first session (webinar) will cover the basics of Youth-Led Democratic Innovation and the 7 Youth Friendly Principles. These are proven strategies to engage young people, driven by research, evaluations and programmatic experience. At the end, we will have 10-15 minutes for questions and answers.
After the session, we will discuss the upcoming three workshops with the audience:
Outreach and You(th) (March 20), Social Media and You(th) (March 27) and Creating & Sustaining Programs and You(th) (April 3).
Learning Outcomes:
After this 40-minute introductory session, participants will:
March 20, 1:00-2:30 PM ET
Presenters: Ashley Igboanugo and Tanisha Garing
The first of three workshops is Intentional Interactions. This workshop is the first step for youth engagement, specifically regarding outreach, using design-thinking activities and tools. We’ll first explore organizations’ struggles with recruitment and what they hope to do for youth engagement in their spaces. We will then examine, using Apathy is Boring examples, different strategies to reach and recruit youth in various settings. At the end of the session, attendees will make a concrete outreach plan to execute within 6 months to a year. We will have 10-15 minutes for questions and answers at the end.
Key Learning Objectives:
March 27, 1:00-2:30 PM ET
Presenter: Dena Anwar
The second workshop is Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Engage Youth. This workshop will build on what was learned from the previous week around recruitment and outreach but specifically focus on social media. Social media is an excellent tool and resource for connecting with and inviting diverse youth into your virtual or physical spaces.
This session will allow organizations participating to share challenges in reaching youth through social media. Using research around youth segmentation, we’ll explore the top social media channels young people use: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, and Discord, along with strategies for organizations to use to recruit and reach youth online.
Key Learning Objectives:
April 3, 1:00-2:30 PM ET
Presenters: Irmak Taner and Sydney Penner
The final workshop is Youth as Decision-Makers: Creating Meaningful Opportunities. After exploring recruitment strategies, how one engages youth is a matter of the programs, projects, and roles offered. In this session, we’ll dive into creating meaningful opportunities for youth: how organizations can ensure young people are excited to participate and how organizations can avoid tokenizing their youth.
In this session, we will explore the Youth-Led Democratic Innovation model and how it can be strategically used to connect with youth and allow them to innovate in your organizations. We will also use this final session to address some of your questions and concerns about creating meaningful engagement opportunities for youth in your organization.
Key Learning Objectives:
Youth Friendly, a consulting program under Apathy is Boring, collaborates with partners to drive social innovation by strategically and intentionally integrating diverse youth perspectives in their work and practices. Through a thorough framework and carefully curated services, our mission is to educate and train our partners on creating spaces where youth can have a tangible impact on their conditions, especially within our democratic institutions.
Apathy is Boring was founded in 2004 when a choreographer, a filmmaker, and a fashion photographer met at a party. Troubled by how few of their friends actively participated in Canada’s democracy, they started a campaign to mobilize youth to vote during the 2004 federal election. The organization has since grown into a national charitable organization that supports and educates youth (18-30) to be active and contributing citizens in Canada’s democracy.
Sydney Penner
Sydney is the Research and Evaluations Lead at Apathy is Boring. Following her psychology degree from Simon Fraser University, she has worked in clinical mental health and addictions and non-profit social sciences research. At AisB, her job is to evaluate our programs and research new trends in youth-related democracy. She helps make sure we're doing what we set out to do—supporting you(th)!
Erika De Torres
Erika is the Director of Impact and Development at Apathy is Boring, where she has managed the RAD department for the past four years. Her interest in youth engagement and civic participation began when she was young, and she saw the importance of youth in these spaces for increased innovation and resiliency. In her spare time, she likes to play board games and walk her cat, Kimchi.
Ashley Igboanugo (she/her)
Ashley is Apathy is Boring’s Partnership and Engagement Manager. She leads strategic partnerships and engagement initiatives that amplify youth civic engagement and foster meaningful connections with community organizations and leaders. She holds an Honours BA in Psychology with a minor in French and is currently an MPH candidate. With experience in program coordination, policy analysis, and public health, Ashley focuses on addressing systemic inequities and driving grassroots change.
Tanisha Garing (she/her)
Tanisha is Apathy is Boring’s Outreach Coordinator, a communications professional valuing accessible language, relationship building, and intentional community connections. She earned her B.Sc in Psychology at Dalhousie University and has enjoyed integrating with the Kjipuktuk / Halifax community over the past decade. Tanisha’s role involves executing outreach initiatives for AisB programs, fostering relationships with organizations and community leaders in hub communities while increasing AisB’s visibility in these areas.
Dena Anwar (she/her)
Dena is the Social and content Manager at Apathy Is Boring. She studied International Management, Marketing, and Anthropology at McGill University. Her role is to ensure that Apathy Is Boring’s message and mission are spread in an engaging and informative manner across all social media platforms to help young Canadians stay active in the democratic space.
Irmak Taner
Irmak was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, and has been living in Montreal for the past 10 years. Her curiosity about people, individually and collectively, led her to a degree in Psychology and International Development Studies at McGill followed by a graduate degree in Anthropology at Concordia. She believes in the power of community organizing and as an aspiring artist she is always looking for ways to bring arts into action.
Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101
Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.
Session 2: Positionality
ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.
Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101
Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.
Session 4: Building Better Relations
ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector
Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.
Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance
A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.
Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.
Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships
This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.
Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector
Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector
Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector
Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector
Cost: Free
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