Urban Minds

Urban Minds is a Canadian non-profit organization with a mission to create meaningful ways for youth to shape equitable and sustainable cities. At Urban Minds, we want to transform youth engagement for city-building projects from being a tiresome chore into an inspiring journey. We want to change the perception of youth as lesser, passive participa... nts to that of youth as capable, active co-creators. However, municipalities and civic organizations have a hard time engaging youth. They dont know how to reach them, how to appeal to them, and how to effectively involve them. They have limited time and resources, or find it awkward, to cultivate relationships with youth. We help municipalities and civic organizations to better connect with youth and design youth-friendly spaces, programs, and services. We help our clients develop effective recruitment strategies and identify incentives to get youth involved. We also act as relationship builders to bridge the gap between our clients and the youth we work with. Founded in 2016, our team has directly worked with over 300 students from more than 50 schools across the Greater Toronto Area. Through our 1UP Youth City Builders Program , we inspire and equip high school students to lead their own community design-build projects and co-design spaces with our clients. Our first youth-friendly public art installation, #WouldYouRatherTO , is a winner of the Everyone is King: Design-Build Competition for the King Street Pilot Project in Toronto. Today, we continue to build relationships with municipalities and civic organizations to help them deliver their strategic and design objectives through youth engagement. Have a youth-facing project in mind? Learn more about our Strategy + Design services.Read More