Listen
Run listening sessions, surveys and small discussions on the issues students actually care about.
School level
From one competition into a year-round leadership platform
Every Grade 6–12 competitor is eligible to apply to start a Youth Voice Club at their own school, and to run it as Founder, Founding President or Chapter Lead. The Challenge is the annual stage. The clubs are the network that collects youth voice all year.
Annual cycle
Five things a club does every year
The cycle is small enough for a student to actually run alongside school, and structured enough to produce something at the end of it.
Discuss
Take one or two youth issues each month or term through discussion, speech practice and argument training.
Act
Organize community service, public-interest outreach, approved fundraising or an in-school awareness campaign.
Speak
Hold an in-school Youth Voice Showcase or qualifier and nominate students for the annual Challenge.
Report
Write student views into a short Youth Voice Brief, collected annually into the Canadian Youth Voice Report.
The loop
Collect, express, feed back
Each step produces an artifact. By the end of the year, the school has a brief and the program has a national report.
| Step | What students do | What it produces |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Discover | Identify the issues young people in the school or community care about. | Issue List |
| 2. Listen | Surveys, interviews and listening sessions. | Youth Inputs |
| 3. Synthesize | Summarize the main views, the disagreements and the recommendations. | School Youth Voice Brief |
| 4. Speak | Say it publicly — at school events and at the national Challenge. | Speech / Public Showcase |
| 5. Share | Roll the year up into the Youth Voice Report. | Annual Youth Voice Report |
Starting a club
What it takes, honestly
School approval is required
Eligibility to apply is not the same as a club existing. Formation follows your school's own club-approval process, and the program supports the application rather than overriding it.
Grade 6–8 needs an adult anchor
Middle school clubs should have a named teacher advisor or staff support, configured according to the school's own policy.
A national framework behind you
The organizer maintains the club framework — the cycle, the brief template, showcase guidance and the route into the annual Challenge.
Two pathways
Independent, or aligned with a charity program
Path A — Independent Youth Voice Club
Middle School and High School
Runs under the Canadian Youth Voice Challenge’s own brand, with no charity-partner branding. Where permission is granted, the club may organize fundraising in support of the approved charitable goal.
Path B — Charity-aligned pathway
Primarily High School
Eligible high schools may apply to connect with the charity partner’s existing campus club system, using the Youth Voice Challenge as their annual expression event, with age-eligible students joining the partner’s youth-opinion platform. Any Grade 6–8 route into an existing youth-participation program must be confirmed separately by the partner.
Important limits
"Every competitor can start a club" means every competitor is eligible to apply.
- Established charity campus-club systems in Canada generally serve high schools and above, and typically register only one campus club per school. A Youth Voice Club is not automatically one of those.
- A High School Division club that wants formal charity campus-club status must meet that organization's own requirements — teacher advisor, leadership roles, agreements and the one-account-per-school rule.
- Middle School Division clubs do not use a charity partner's club name on their own initiative. Whether an official youth-engagement route exists for Grade 6–8 is a question for the partner organization, not an assumption this program makes.
Clubs are how a school keeps its voice after the event.
Students apply through the competition cycle. Schools and organizations can ask for the club framework and the partner pack directly.