Organizers behind Communities Building Youth Futures (CBYF), an initiative overseen locally by the Portage Community Revitalization Corporation, are excited to finally get up and running next month.

CBYF will be centred around giving youths ages 15 to 29 the chance to improve their mindset when it comes to adulthood. Morag Morrison, Community Connector with CBYF, says their vision is to help more students graduate high school and then transition into adulthood. Whether that be pursuing further education, seeking employment, or just finding their space in the community.

"We (have) four focused areas that people have told us they want to see some work done in the community on, so those are youth engagement, mental health, education and employment," says Morrison. "And so what we're doing is we have a leadership table that's got a lot of stake holders and youth who've been guiding our work so far and then we're kind of branching out and creating these action groups."

While the project may just be getting off the ground right now, they've already secured funding until 2024. Morrison hopes to use this funding partially to incentivize youth to come to the meetings.

"Especially for the young people that are joining we're really excited we're able to offer some gift cards to cover the cost of a dinner," Morrison stated. "Just to offer that little incentive, because we do really appreciate the expertise and work that young people are going to bring to the project as well."

Morrison said that the first two branches of CBYF, those being youth engagement and mental health, will be launching during the first and second week of June. To read more about the individual branches and how to get involved, click here.