Digital Youth Hub (DYH)

The pandemic has ravaged community programs for youth. Community centers and youth programs are closed. We will tackle this challenge through recreating the youth community center experience. Fully online. We will offer value-added digital services and solutions to underprivileged youth via an immersive virtual experience that mimics a physical community center. 

The digital nature of the youth hub, along with support services and e-infrastructure are based on principles of accessibility and transmissibility. Therefore, we will directly support youth who cannot afford to connect through providing access to digital devices and broadband.

The DYH uses existing digital platforms and social medias to build our e-infrastructure, activities and supports; Discord, Instagram and Facebook.

We are solving the problems of 'digital civics' for youth. Much is said about apathy among young people when it comes to civic involvement. However, statistics tell us that "Canadians aged 15 to 24 are more likely to have volunteered in the past 12 months than Canadians aged 25 and above." (Government of Canada, 2016). The youth are "...most active in sports/recreational organizations, school/community." (ibid)

However, social services in North American cities are less accessible for racialized users from under-served low-income neighbourhoods (Martin, 2012; Kissane, 2016). These inequities, even in wealthy Global North urban centers which are generally well connected to the internet, are further exacerbated based on digital divides among different ethno-racial and class groups (see Amin and Howell, 2016). 

The DYH addresses inequities in access to social and civic engagement through re-creating the community youth center fully online. It enhances  access to community programs in a synchronous online environment as well as asynchronous offerings. All DYH activities will be free and accessible to any youth with an internet connection, but our target demographic is low-income, racialized young people. We will ensure that underprivileged youth have the right device and connections to take part, if needed. Our fully virtual offering will connect youth with the resources and opportunities to enhance their digital literacy as well through free courses and mentorships in the DYH.

The DYH is an online youth community center based on the Discord platform. It further uses Facebook and Instagram for outreach, via images and video marketing, to get more youth into our structured virtual space on Discord. This fully digital community center will offer afterschool programs everyday of the week and special sessions on the weekends similar to your local community center. Moreover, the DYH will share opportunities and resources with the youth frequently via Discord pages as well as facilitate (in)formal synchronous video-audio and text conversations among them. With a decade of grassroots youth experience, we have become experts at the skills need to build communities online and offline. Similar to physical community programs, incentives such as volunteer hours, food (e-gift vouchers) and honorariums will be provided to participants. Any youth with access to a digital device and internet will be able to hop on and participate in the DYH. To ensure accessibility, we will directly assist youth who do not have adequate digital infrastructures at home but want to participate as well as offer free lessons on digital literacy and internet use for those who are behind. 

We are mainly serving underprivileged, low-income and racialized youth from the city of Toronto in Canada. Like many North American cities, there is a lot of poverty amidst the wealth here. Toronto is called a 'city of neighbourhoods' with over 100 of them hosting close to 3 million people. We directly serve the most underprivileged youth groups and communities from an 'ethno-burb' (see Li, 1998) called Scarborough in the east end of Toronto. More than half the population in Scarborough are racialized, immigrants from different parts of the world, with many belonging to low-income families and/or neighbourhoods (see Rouf et al., 2019). 

There are proven benefits of community participation for underprivileged youth that provide access to resources and opportunities. Given our fully online offering, we are always at their fingertips to access. The pandemic has particularly hampered civic participation and engagement among youth and they really need an intervention such as DYH. Our digital solution brings the civic to the digital through re-creating the community center experience on an online platform for underprivileged youth across the city. One day we hope DYH will reach people across our country and the world. 

We primarily serve low-income, racialized youth ages 15-29 across the city. We are enhancing access to social and civic opportunities online. DYH will reproduce the supports and benefits of a community center for its participants. We'll emphasize the need for digital literacy, providing targeted workshops, mentorships and resources. We'll also emphasize other socio-economic skills e.g. internet entrepreneurship that will drive the future economy. Youth will participate in one shared virtual space that is safe, inclusive and reflects their interests. We have been serving this demographic since 2010, developing a deep expertise about what works and what does not.

We are currently testing this with our non-profit, Just Our Stories (JOS) Youth Association. The JOS Discord currently has 60+ youth from high priority neighborhoods in Scarborough and we have limited program offerings right now e.g. weekly game night and monthly movie night. The youth have shared their vision for doing more sustained educational and recreational programs virtually. Hence, we are looking to take our pilot to the next stage given the right support and funding. We want to host workshops, mentorship and daily drop-ins all online that will help underprivileged youth from our city have access to routine programming like a local community center.

It improves on old ways of doing things. We believe that the future of community youth centers is fully online. We are here to create that future. There will be positive spin-off effects related to the DYH, particularly if our innovation is adapted and scaled. Even at a small scale, there are social, civic and economic benefits for underprivileged youth participants such as skills development, mentorship and leadership/volunteering opportunities, available simply with a computer and internet connection. The DYH keeps these youth busy online in productive activities and out of trouble on the streets. They are meeting like minded peers and getting access to self-development resources frequently through advanced audio-video telecommunication platforms.

We currently serve around 60 youth. In one year, we hope to serve 500 youth. In 5 years, we expect 5,000 youth to be a part of DYH across the world. The use of digital technologies and marketing will allow this rapid scaling.

1) Number of service users.

2) Number of volunteering and work positions created and hours contributed.

3) Reported improvements in social and civic engagement among underprivileged youth on the DYH.

4) Reported increases in skillsets and access to opportunities among participants, volunteers and workers.

We are a team of 8 youth volunteers currently. With time we hope to grow the core team.

We are a diverse group of individuals who represents our primary service user demographics; racialized, low income urban youth. We met each other through our involvement in grassroots civic work across the city. Some of us studied computer sciences while others studied health sciences. Some of us work as clinical researchers while others are teaching assistants in universities. Despite the professional and educational diversity, we are dedicated to our core principles of youth leadership and engagement. These principles drove us to come together to form a non-profit organization called Just Our Stories (JOS) Youth Association.

100% of our leadership is racialized. 50% are women. 80% at one time lived in a low income household. 100% are from or have lived in the city of Toronto. We represent the people we serve. We empower ourselves and our peers.

We believe we have an idea that will create broad positive change. MIT Solve offers the funding and support to turn this idea from a small pilot to a practical scaled solution.

Our biggest worry right now is financing and marketing. These are important for a small early stage solution. DYH is being tested and it will require funding and marketing to reach the masses. 

We are still looking into meaningful partnerships.