Building healthy communities

Megan Johnson was 13 when she signed up for a wilderness-adventure expedition with HeartWood. At 16 she was invited to be one of the organization's board members. Now 20, the third-year music student at Acadia University co-chairs the board. "My very first meeting was hard," admits Johnson. "I felt completely out of my element." But it didn't take long for Johnson to find her voice. "I've never seen an organization that believes so much in what youth can do now as opposed to what youth can do down the line. It's very empowering."

One of Canada's leading youth and community development agencies, HeartWood (www.heartwood.ns.ca) was founded in 1989 in Rosebay, Lunenburg County, by husband-and-wife team Maureen Langbo and Marc Langlois. Originally they led canoe trips, leadership camps, and environmental-education programs for youth. Now the organization's focus is on meaningful youth participation in building healthy communities.

Heartwood youth participate in the Atlantic Youth Leadership camp, an eight-day province-wide program led by Heartwood.

While HeartWood was hugely successful at an individual level, some of the youth still felt powerless to affect change in their communities. The solution? Launching a Community Youth Development (CYD) framework that involves youth acting as members of a team in partnership with supportive adults.

This strength–based method, as well as recognizing youth as community builders, and the CYD framework is called "the HeartWood approach." According to executive director Brian Braganza, "The HeartWood approach is about connecting to ourselves and our gifts, and valuing the gifts others bring. It's also about recognizing the connections we have to the environment and each other. It's successful because it's so basic. We all want to have a voice, we all want to reach our potential, we all are passionate about something."

CYD projects include creating community gardens, visiting seniors, helping youth in the child-welfare system, raising donations for local food banks, and building a youth centre, to name a few. These projects build entrepreneurial skills and attitudes in the participants. CYD also involves including youth in decision making and policy development. It's easy for the organization to practice what it preaches because three of its nine board members are between the ages of 20 and 25.

The pulse of HeartWood is beginning to reverberate beyond the borders of Nova Scotia. In 2005 the Department of Canadian Heritage asked HeartWood to create and facilitate a Pan-Territorial Youth Forum in Yellowknife. As well, the CYD framework is being tested by the Models Program of the National Rural Secretariat under the Department of Agriculture and Agri-food, in Nain, Labrador, Mt. Stewart in Prince Edward Island, and Lennoxville in Quebec. This past spring, a group from Australia contacted the organization to express interest in its framework and approach. It likely won't be long before other parts of the world learn about and adopt "the HeartWood approach."

— Sandra Phinney

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