This summer we were fortunate enough, once again, to have a C@P Youth Intern for every C@P Site in Inverness County that requested one. All sites, with the exception of Pleasant Bay, Margaree ECRL and Whycocomagh, received funding through ICCNS from the Canada Summer Jobs Program. ICCNS also received funding from Industry Canada to hire a Summer Youth Intern Coordinator and a student to work on special projects for the network.
At the beginning of each summer, we have the students meet for a orientation/training day. This year we did something a little bit different and had the students attend a Youth Based Asset Mapping training secession. The secession was facilitated by Isabelle Lefort-Chiasson, Senior Program Facilitator for Heart Wood Centre for Community Youth Development.
Asset mapping is a process of discovering the resources, relationships, energy attractors, and opportunities (as well as obstacles) that are at work in the community (or, system, organization, network). Identifying these components and mapping them out (i.e., seeing their connections, depth, overlaps, gaps, where assets may be under-utilized, etc.) allows the users to be more aware of what is going on in the community and more intentional in mobilizing these forces and resources to support youth engagement initiatives. (Heart Wood)
ICCNS has been working with the Municipality of Inverness County on a community mapping project. The project involved some community asset mapping by the community development associations within the county. With the work done on that project, we thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce the C@P Youth Interns to the concept of community asset mapping. After providing them with some training and tools, Youth Interns were asked to do some of their own asset mapping within their respective communities.
Some of the interns created blogs with photos they took, while others did some recorded interviews. Links to these projects are provide. Not all youth were able to spend time on community asset mapping projects, as they were kept busy with the day to day activities of their C@P sites; but they all agreed that the training session was valuable and gave them a different perspective on their communities and how asset mapping applies to community development.
