HOME

NEWS!! NEWS!!

Just in time for the new year, we are very excited to announce plans to host our next Youth Exchange in Summer, 2008. Now is the time to apply, so please visit our Youth Exchange page for information and applications:

Click here to learn about the 2008 ALACD Youth Exchange.

About the Youth Ambassadors Across Canada Project

The Youth Ambassadors Across Canada Project focuses on supporting self-advocacy opportunities for young Canadians with Disabilities both nationally, and within their communities. Young people with disabilities have unique experiences and perspectives to share that are crucial to the future sustainability of the inclusion movement. By facilitating opportunities where young people with disabilities can exercise their talents for self-advocacy and feel respected and valued, we encourage the skills needed for the youths themselves to affect positive change within each of their communities. We believe that the inclusion movement will continue to have meaning and longevity when led collectively by a new generation of self-advocating young Canadians with disabilities and the community partners who support them.  

Goals and Objectives

• Engage youths with disabilities as leaders in advocating for more inclusive communities, specifically around active living;
• Build a solid and active community of Youth Ambassadors, with strong connections to community active living stakeholders;
• Work toward a Canada where more communities prioritize accessibility and inclusiveness in their planning; and,
• Build capacity among the next generation of leaders in the disability rights movement.

Our Approach and Plan for Action

Together with the youths with disabilities in our communities and our provincial and national partners, we will achieve our goals by:

• Revising our existing Youth Ambassador resource to include more tools and to be more accessible;
• Recruiting and training Youth Ambassadors to become the future of the inclusion movement;
• Building and strengthening partnerships around inclusive communities to give Youth Ambassadors better chances to affect change and to become involved;
• Evolving toward a youth-directed Youth Ambassador initiative
• To ensure longer-term reach of the goals of this project.

Click here for 2006 Youth Exchange Pictures