Sponsor a Youth-Initiated Project
Every Y2Y gathering ends the same way it should: with young people who don’t want it to be over. They’ve built something around that fire — trust, ideas, a sense that maybe they can actually change something back home. Most programs stop there. We don’t want to.
A Youth-Initiated Project is what happens next. It’s funding that goes directly to a young person — not a committee, not a program office — so they can take an idea they had at Y2Y and actually build it in their own community.
Fund a Project
SPARK — $500
Provides the supplies a youth needs to bring their project idea to life – from planning materials to the tools required to get started.
IGNITE — $5,000
Provides a youth with seed funding, mentorship, and the resources to move their project from idea to a working pilot – the support that turns “I have an idea” into “I built this.”
SUSTAIN — $15,000
Provides a youth with a paid year to fully develop their project – a living stipend alongside sustained mentorship and resources, so they can treat this as real work, not something squeezed in around a part-time job. The kind of support that turns “I built this” into “this is what I do.”
We’re not looking for polished proposals. We’re looking for young people who see a gap and want to close it. Our job is to make sure that when a Y2Y alum says “I want to do something about this,” money isn’t the reason they can’t.
What qualifies?
Projects need to connect to what HIP stands for. That means falling under one or more of these:
Truth & Reconciliation: projects that build understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, or that create space for the kind of honest conversations reconciliation actually requires
Youth Leadership: projects that put young people in charge, not as volunteers helping adults execute someone else’s plan
Land & Environment: projects rooted in stewardship of the land, connection to territory, or environmental responsibility
Cultural Restoration: projects that revive, protect, or pass on language, teachings, ceremony, or traditional practice
Community: projects that strengthen the bonds and wellbeing of the community the young person calls home
A project doesn’t need to check every box. It needs to be real, it needs to be youth-led, and it needs to matter to the community it’s meant to serve.