A Youth Hub Focusing on Wellness is Coming to Timmins

A new organization aimed at bringing more to Timmins youth is asking City Hall for some financial help.

Youth Wellness Hub is an initiative to bring activities and supports to youth and teens aged 12 to 25 in the evenings and on weekends.

Project Coordinator Anne Vincent says adults are so used to telling youth what they need, but this program will focus on what the youth want. This can include conversations around drugs and alcohol, mental health and what’s going on the community. Vincent says there will also be fun activities included. She says there will be no set location for the hub, but instead move around the city to reach as many youth as possible.

Vincent says event though there will be different activities and themes based on where the hub is on that night, it will always focus on some core values that have been identified by some youth in Timmins. 

She says a group of youth connectors will be spending the summer talking with other youth and hear what their wants and needs are for the project. Vincent says part of this will include a special youth event planned at Gillies Lake on July 25th that will demonstrate how the hub will work. She says there will also be conversation cafes around the city throughout August so more youth can connect.

Vincent says the goal is to launch the youth hub in September. It will run three days a week over 15-weeks. She says the plan is to reach 30 people per session, staying in touch with about 90 youth each week. 

Over 40 organizations have jumped on board to help including NEOFACS, Misiway Health Centre and all four local school boards.

The project is asking Council for just over $80,000 to help it get started. Mayor Steve Black says a vote will come back to the next meeting, but it doesn’t look like there will be any issues with this.