Urban Minds

Urban Minds is pleased to invite your organization to participate as a sponsor for the 2024-2025 1UP Youth City Builders Program! Our 1UP Youth City Builders Program offers your organization a unique opportunity to showcase your brand to an engaged, energetic and talented community of secondary school student leaders. The support of your organization will build the foundation for a successful program year from August 2024 to June 2025 for all our participants. Benefits of Partnering: ➡The opportunity to engage with a group of high-capacity and self-driven student leaders from across Ontario who can become your brand ambassadors ➡The chance to increase your brand exposure within the 1UP program and beyond with external speakers and volunteers ➡The opportunity to receive recognition in collateral materials, including our website, program guide, posters and social media posts ➡Sponsorships can be customized to meet your goals We invite you to build on your organization’s success and to increase your brand’s visibility to a community of young changemakers by sponsoring the 1UP program. Learn more about this opportunity below! #YouthLedCityBuilding #1UPYouthCityBuilders

The Urban Minds Team would like to extend a huge thank you to our Diamond sponsors—the Ontario Professional Planners Institute and Diamond Schmitt! These organizations are generously supporting our 1UP Youth City Builders Program for the 2024-2025 program year, and we are immensely grateful that we will continue to be able to run our 1UP initiatives and mentor the next generation of changemakers, thanks largely in part to their contributions. Thank you so much again to the Ontario Professional Planners Institute and Diamond Schmitt — stay tuned for what's to come in the 1UP Program this year!

Calling all city-building professionals! Are you interested in facilitating youth involvement and engagement in the urban design-building process? Look no further as applications are now open to become a 1UP Mentor for the 2024-25 1UP school chapters! This is your opportunity to inspire the next generation of urban changemakers! Throughout the upcoming 2024-25 school year, you'll get a chance to work closely with passionate high school students on their community design-build projects. Check out this post to learn more about what the role of a 1UP Mentor entails! Applications close on Friday, September 13th at 11:59PM, so click here to apply today: https://lnkd.in/gsuhZe3W   #1uptoronto #1upmentor #1upschoolchapter #urbanchangemakers

It was a pleasure to take part in a panel discussion about city-building careers and to meet all the wonderful people behind Urban Minds' 1UP Leaders Lab program. This program is intended for high school students in the Toronto, Hamilton, and Kitchener/Waterloo areas who are interested in careers related to planning and design. It also provides training for students to establish their own school chapter and to reflect on planning issues in their communities.🚎 It is important to educate high schoolers about opportunities in planning (a relatively unknown career path!) and to emphasize that they have an important role in shaping cities of the future. 🏙 ✨ Details here: https://lnkd.in/gzj7qEpN

We love to see what our Team members learn from Urban Minds' work! Thank you Augustine Wong for everything you brought to our Youth Engagement work this summer.

Always a pleasure speaking with Emma Avery at Happy Cities on the topic of 'Making Space for Youth in Our Communities'. Also a nod of thanks again to Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) for creating space for our Mobilizer session from Canada's Placemaking Community in March - Their Third Space: Exploring the Power of Community Spaces for Youth 'Engaging Youth in Shaping Community Spaces How do we go about creating community spaces for—and with—youth? Participants from across Canada shared their experiences. Lanrick Bennett Jr. is the Executive Director at Charlie's FreeWheels, a community-led organization that inspires youth to ride bikes with confidence and excitement, by providing skills, tools, and guidance. He explains that the first step is to take youth voices seriously, and then consider what their unique needs are. “We’ve gotta take the time to listen,” said Bennett. “When we’re talking and how we look at places catering to young people, we’re looking at, ‘Is this place easy to get to without a parent or an adult? Is the place safe and accessible? Is the place free or do I have to pay a fee?’” It’s also essential to think seriously about how we meet youth. For example, most kids are not interested in going to a town hall to weigh in on a city planning process. Instead, city planners might go to a local school to meet youth where they are and invite them to directly shape their neighbourhoods—through projects such as community murals or a photography workshop. If we fail to reach and listen to youth, spaces end up being shaped by the dominant voices in the room—typically, people who are older, whiter, and more affluent. For example, in many Toronto neighbourhoods, the City used to take down basketball nets in local parks after school because people complained that kids were making too much noise. “It’s a detriment to not include young people, because what you’re teaching them right there and then is that their voice doesn’t matter and their input doesn’t matter, and only these other people that are older or of a different colour or different race or whatnot that don’t look like you [matter],” said Bennett. “We need to break that cycle.” ' In the city you live in, where is the 'third space' that has been crafted for youth to do more than exist in? h/t School of Cities, University of Toronto, Department of Imaginary Affairs, East End Arts, A Playful City, plazaPOPS, Toronto Public Library, Toronto Public Space Committee, Evergreen Canada, Our Greenway Conservancy, Project for Public Spaces, 8 80 Cities, The Bentway, Park People / Ami·es des parcs, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), Green Communities Canada, About Here, Urban Minds, City Building TMU, DTAH & Waterfront Toronto

On Wednesday, August 7th, a 1UP Office Tour took place with architects-Alliance. Here are some photos of the event! The rationale behind 1UP Office Tours is to provide high school students with insights into the day-to-day life of different city-building careers, such as architecture. High school students took part in this 1UP Office Tour during which they toured the architects-Alliance office, participated in a walking tour around the block to see some of architects-Alliance's projects firsthand, learned about the role of 3D-printing in their architecture firm, and enjoyed some free lunch! A big thank you to architects-Alliance for co-hosting this office tour with 1UP! Thank you as well to the youth who attended this event. We look forward to hosting more 1UP Office Tours next summer! In the meantime, check out the 1UP Office Tours of 2024 here: https://lnkd.in/eyMHSZ3T

Meet Gillian Seitz, a new Hamilton Program Coordinator on the team! As we continue to expand our youth engagement work into #HamiltonOntario, we're fortunate to be able to grow the Urban Minds team along the way. We're excited to see what we'll be able to accomplish with Gillian on board. Check out the team page on the Urban Minds website to learn about Gillian and the rest of our team: https://lnkd.in/gFvCet6s

On Wednesday July 17, a 1UP Office tour took place with O2 Planning & Design! High school students took part in this 1UP Office Tour, during which they: 🔍 Toured O2’s office 🧠 Learned about the company's disciplines and current projects 📝 Q&A on career opportunities with professionals 🥘Enjoyed some free lunch! Thank you to O2 for hosting this office tour with 1UP Youth City Builders Program and to those who attended! We love these Office Tours because they allow high school students who are interested in pursuing careers in planning and related fields a chance to actually see what some real workspaces look like and what they actually do.

We have some new members on the Urban Minds Team! Please welcome Violeta Violeta Manastirliu and Steph Tywonek who are our new Kitchener-Waterloo Program Coordinators, Malek A. who is our new Project Lead, and Augustine Wong who is our Summer Student. We at Urban Minds are on a mission to engage more youth in city-building. As our work expands across Ontario, we're fortunate to be able to grow our team along the way. We can't wait to see what we'll be able to accomplish with these new team members on board! Visit the team page to learn about them on our website: www.urbanminds.co/team