Aboriginal Next Steps (ANS)

ANS II

The ANSII project ran in 10 communities across BC: Courtenay, Bella Bella, Prince Rupert, Hazelton, Nisga’a, Prince George, Lytton, Westbank, Cranbrook, and Skeetchestn (2007-2009). Having learned about the AHS III results Aboriginal youth picked out the health issues of most importance to them and developed projects to address these issues. Many of these projects are still going strong and the project won the 2009 Solicitor General’s Award for Children and Youth leadership.

ANSII Project Highlights include:

International award winning Claymation films; creating a youth council to work with the school board to reduce the percentage of youth dropping out of school; supporting a youth leadership training that included a future leaders conference; developing a multi-school photojournalism and traditional language project; designing conferences and camps to ‘build bridges’  between youth and local Elders; and coordinating a mentorship project that pairs senior students with junior youth to help ease the younger students’ transition to high school. 

Some films made by youth as part of the project were shown at the Bangkok International Harm Reduction Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Please see individual communities below for summary of the first part of the ANSII project & to view the youth's films.

Bella Bella
Courtenay
Cranbrook
Hazelton
Lytton
Nisga'a
Prince George
Prince Rupert
Skeetechestn
Westbank

The ANSII project has been completed. For a full summary and update of the communities projects, please download a copy of the ANS II report *please note: this may be revised due to community feedback.

To download a copy of the evaluation report for this project, please click here.

ANS I

In 2001, youth facilitators from McCreary set off to facilitate the Next Step workshop in six Aboriginal communities.