December 19th, 2018

Did you know that Waterloo Region has a one in five chance of winning $50 million to improve child and youth well-being?

Something exciting is happening in Waterloo Region. Our community is coming together to improve child and youth well-being through the Federal Government’s Smart Cities Challenge. The Smart Cities Challenge is a new, competition-based approach encouraging communities to come up with innovative solutions to their most pressing challenges.

Through extensive public consultation over the past year, Waterloo Region selected Healthy Children and Youth as its challenge area. Having been short-listed for the grand prize category in June 2018, our community now has a one in five chance of winning $50 million. Our goal is to become the best community in Canada for children and youth!

Since then, social, tech, design and business partners have come together through the Smart Waterloo Region (SWR) project to put children and youth first. To ensure all kids feel valued, heard and included, the SWR team has been working closely with partners and children and youth to identify some of the complex issues affecting younger people.

We’re now looking for ideas on how to solve these issues. Help us by having a conversation with young people! We want to hear from children and youth directly, and how better to access these valuable voices and perspectives than through children, youth, parents and caring adults.

Help us make our community the best in Canada for kids by:  

  • Hosting conversations with children and young people! We’ve created an Ideas Toolkit that will provide support and helpful prompts to get the conversation started,

[Not sure how to host conversations? No problem! Check out our short online video for everything you need to know about our toolkit and some helpful tips and tricks to host engaging discussions!]

  • Learn more about the project at www.smartwr.ca, and
  • Help raise awareness by spreading the word and challenging your friends to have a conversation with our Ideas Toolkit!

Once you’ve hosted a conversation, share the ideas generated with us through our website here, tag us in a post on social media using @SmartWatRegion, or email us with your findings (smartwr@regionofwaterloo.ca).

By working together, we can transform our community for the better. For more information about this exciting project, please visit www.smartwr.ca, and follow Smart Waterloo Region on Twitter and Instagram.

 

 

This information is shared on behalf of Smart Waterloo Region.