Brought to you by: Pathways Shawinigan 

“My favorite part was when we made the food. We went to the grocery store and made an Egg McMuffin and a bowl of yogurt with fruit.”

A Pathways student

Program Activity Snapshot:

To help youth incorporate healthier lifestyle habits into their daily lives:

• We engaged youth in weekly healthy lifestyle challenges on social media
• We planned health-themed mentoring events
  • to strengthen knowledge of healthy habits
  • to create community engagement opportunities for students
• Youth led the creation of fun and humorous educational videos to share the healthy lifestyle habits they learned

Objectives:

1. Make students aware of the link between healthy lifestyle habits and their health. 
2. Encourage students to practice healthy lifestyle habits.
3. Measure the impact of these changes on their daily lives, their well-being, and their academic development. 
4. Mobilize youth by involving them in all aspects of the project. 

What was the result?

• Developed content that was youth-informed and youth-led
• Youth were able to get involved with community food aid organizations (e.g., collective kitchens, food banks)
• Creation of a project plan to engage young people in healthy living activities that can be replicated or adapted and delivered elsewhere

Want to try this out?

What you’ll need:

1. Staffing Support: One Program Facilitator working 2 hours per week for 18 weeks
2. Duration: 6 months    
3. Teaching Aids:  
   • Zoom  
   • Access to social media 
   • Core youth committee 
   • Surveys/questionnaires  
   • Video production equipment 

What you’ll do:

1. Recruit a core group of youth. 

2. Create a questionnaire on healthy lifestyle habits. 

3. Create social media challenges on healthy lifestyle habits (one challenge theme per week: diet, physical exercise, sleep, stress management).  

4. Organize mentoring activities based on each challenge theme. 

5. Create “for youth, by youth” fun and humorous video vignettes on healthy lifestyle habits.  

6. Create partnerships with local organizations (food banks, collective kitchens) to create community involvement opportunities for youth. 

Downloadable resources (e.g. templates, examples used):