Our mission is to transform the way youth shape their cities and the civic processes that impact them.

Our vision is to inspire cities where youth are involved in civic planning, shaping, and decision-making. A city engaged with its youth is a beacon of resilience, sustainability, and livability—not just for the younger generation but for all who call it home now and in the future.

Click here to read our 2022-2024 Strategic Plan.— Liz, Founder of Little Comets Academy

Our Origin Story

Growing up on Coast Salish territories in Vancouver, CityHive co-founders Tesicca Truong and Veronika Bylicki met during the TREK Outdoor Education Program and discovered their passion for challenging societal norms. As they attended town hall meetings and initiated sustainability projects, they recognized a critical gap: political leaders and decision-makers were often overlooking the valuable insights of youth. Their peers were absent from municipal open houses, excluded from vital discussions, and not consulted on issues that impacted their lives. This realization sparked powerful questions: Why aren’t young people engaged in civic processes? How could our communities and cities transform if youth were meaningfully included? And what tools, knowledge, opportunities, and connections are necessary for young people to actively participate in civic processes?

These questions sparked action. And so, CityHive was born.

Our Guiding Principles

Youth-Centered Engagement

We prioritize building meaningful relationships with young people, understanding their needs, and placing them at the forefront of our organization's leadership and programming.

Collaboration

We draw on past and ongoing initiatives within our community and actively seek opportunities to collaborate with other organizations and individuals to enhance our impact.

Inclusivity & Representation

We acknowledge that systemic racism, colonialism, ableism, and other oppressive systems marginalize many individuals from civic engagement based on their identities. We are committed to challenging the status quo and creating opportunities for youth who have been systematically excluded in all of our work.

Justice

Equality

Diversity

Decolonization

Inclusion

Our JEDDI Values

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Our JEDDI Values •

Our Commitment To Anti-Discrimination

Recognizing our complicity in these issues, we acknowledge our responsibility. Our organization operates on the premise of reimagining traditional power structures by connecting younger individuals with institutions, enhancing representation in decision-making processes, making civic processes more accessible and safe, responding to the needs of youth, and building the capacity of young people to engage in civic matters. Anti-racism is a guiding principle of our work, and addressing critical questions related to equity in city-building is essential, particularly because we often find ourselves as one of the few youth-led organizations in various spaces.

CityHive is committed to embedding our values in every aspect of our work. This commitment extends from our internal policies and team culture to the programs and workshops we organize. We continually reflect on how best to incorporate our values into our activities, especially given the historical harm associated with our vision and mission in areas such as city-building, public engagement, and sustainability movements. Discrimination and colonization are deeply rooted in many civic institutions and continue to contribute to ongoing harm.

Our Commitment In Action

We are taking both immediate and long-term actions to ensure that our values remain central to our work. While these commitments may evolve as our organization grows, we share them as a measure of accountability to our community, including all our youth participants, partners, and beyond:

    • Anti-racism training with Bakau Consulting (2021)

    • Equity training (2023)

    • Indigenous ways of knowing training (2023)

    • Anti-racism training & coaching with TufLov Consulting (2023-2024)

    • Trauma-informed practice training (2024)

    • Accessibility & neurodiversity training (2024)

    • Ongoing/Future: Ongoing training to support new team members along their own learning journeys.

    • All staff receive learning plan & professional development budget

    • CityHive becomes a Living Wage employer (2022)

    • CityHive’s first HR Policy Manual is launched (2023)

    • New Working Together questions are added to team onboarding (2023)

    • Publication of new compensation / pay scale for pay transparency (2023)

    • New pulse check survey implemented (2023)

    • New performance measurement practices implemented (2024)

    • Ongoing/Future: Additions to existing policies to centre equity; restructuring of compensation policy to align with best practices.

    • Ensure that guest speakers in programs represent equity-deserving communities

    • Conduct impact assessment of all programs to identifying missing audiences (2021)

    • Develop Power/Place Case Studies and Civic Action Stories for CityShapers in Schools (2022)

    • Indigenous Governance incorporated into programming with support from cultural consultants (2023)

    • New accessibility protocols (low stim spaces, prayer rooms, etc.) implemented into all programs and events (2023)

    • Deliver first ever CityHive program targeting youth from newcomer and immigrant backgrounds, Surrey Shapers (2023)

    • Deliver first ever CityHive program specifically designed by and for BIPOC youth, Urban ReVision (2024)

    • Grant funds allow us to purchase new accessbility supplies (earplugs, stim toys, etc.) for programs and events (2024)

    • Ongoing/Future: Ensuring program budgets account for accessibility and inclusion measures; ensuring voices centred in programming are representative of a wide range of backgrounds but centre those from equity-deserving communities.

    • Partnership with Youthful Cities idetifies key audiences to reach for initial 30Network programs (2017)

    • Collaborative delivery of many cohort programs:

      • North Shore Young Civic Forum with North Shore Community Resources (2019-2022)

      • Youth Civic Engagement Program with City of Richmond (2021)

      • Civic Innovators: Renovate the Public Hearing with SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue (2023)

      • Surrey Shapers: Public Space with SUCCESS Youth Leadership Millennium and Umoja Operation Society (2023)

    • Embedding Steering Committees into climate programs provides community input on program development (2019-2024)

    • CityShapers in Communities (formerly Climate Action Jam) workshops involve co-delivery in partnership with community groups (2022-present)

    • CityShapers in Schools advisory is built to provide critical feedback on program direction and development (2022-present)

    • CityShapers in Schools is co-delivered in partnership with:

      • Squamish Nation

      • City of Vancouver

      • City of Surrey

      • City of North Vancouver

    • Ongoing/Future: Building deeper, more reciprocal, and less project-dependent relationships with community partners, especially those working with multiply-marginalized communities of youth.

Where to Next?