Child & Youth Diabetes

xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden

Vancouver, BC

xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden grows and gifts traditional food to Musqueam community members, working to reduce food insecurity and restore wellness through connection to land and culture. Its name means “the place where we grow” in hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓.

The garden is creating a wholistic care model for Musqueam, establishing new gardens on the reserve and integrating food production with cooking classes, children’s workshops, a recipe book, language revitalization, and childcare.

xʷc̓ic̓əsəm is directed by Indigenous UBC researchers and the Medicine Collective, a group of Indigenous women who are both knowledge holders and researchers. It has been a part of the UBC Farm in Vancouver since 2007 and is now recognized as the Centre for Indigenous Land-Based Education, Research, and Wellness.

Diabetes Integration Project

First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba · Winnipeg, MB

The Diabetes Integration Project (DIP) identifies First Nations children and youth at risk of diabetes and works with them to prevent the progression of the disease and its complications.

Travelling to First Nations communities across Manitoba, DIP nurse teams screen youth aged 10 to 25 using point-of-care testing to determine their risk, then invite them into a “diabetes boot camp” covering diabetes, mental health, traditional knowledge, nutrition, and physical activity. The team also develops diabetes and wellness coaching videos and teaching materials that are openly available online, working through a First Nations lens with harm-reduction and strength-based approaches.

DIP’s three teams of nurses provide point-of-care testing, diabetes counselling and education, care plans, and referral pathways across First Nation communities in Manitoba.

Turnor Lake & Birch Narrows Community Food Centre

Turnor Lake, SK

The Turnor Lake & Birch Narrows Community Food Centre improves access to food while preserving and practicing traditional foodways in a remote region where high food prices and a single small grocery store limit healthy choices.

The Community Food Centre’s programs bring youth, families, and Elders together through community gardens, workshops on preparing traditional foods such as caribou, duck, and rabbit, and land-based programs where youth learn to hunt, fish, and snare. The Youth and Elders programs pair generations to grow and cook good food together and to create custom clothing and blankets for their families, building relationships and friendships that help youth and families thrive.

As the first Community Food Centre in Saskatchewan and one of only three in an Indigenous community, it brings a Northern First Nations and Métis perspective to the Community Food Centres of Canada model. Birch Narrows First Nation and Turnor Lake Hamlet are two tight-knit communities of 800 people from the Dene and Cree Nations and are located 700 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon in an area of rich boreal forest.

Camp du Grand Portage

New Pathways Foundation · Wendake, QC

Camp du Grand Portage is a hands-on, weeklong experience where high school students from First Nations communities build a multi-kilometre trail that will serve their entire community, promoting physical activity and community pride.

Bringing together education, health, public works, recreation, Elders, and local leadership around a shared goal, the youth do the work themselves — gaining confidence, practical skills, and a deep sense of ownership over a trail that will be used for years to come. It supports mental health by reconnecting youth to the land, outside traditional clinical settings, and fosters pride and belonging by letting youth experience success outdoors and be seen in a new light by teachers and support staff.

The camp is led by the New Pathways Foundation, an Indigenous organization based in Wendake, Quebec.

Opaskwaya Identity Project

Opaskwayak Culture & Healthy Living Initiatives · Opaskwayak Cree Nation, MB

Opaskwayak Culture & Healthy Living Initiatives has developed “Opaskwaya Identity: Connecting youth with local knowledge through land-based practices”. In the project, Opaskwayak Cree Nation Indigenous youth gather knowledge, skills and experiences that prepares them to take responsibility for and control of their health and well-being.

Drawing on local Elders’ land-based knowledge and practices, youth learn to identify, harvest, and prepare traditional foods and medicines, as well as foods grown in the community garden. Youth take canoe trips through their territory’s waterways, where they are able to apply their land-based knowledge and skills. Related resources and curriculum for the community and schools are developed to support the maintenance of activities beyond the project term.

Makate Waagamichiwanang Gakinaa’amaatiwin Youth & Family Wellness Camp

Kenora Chiefs Advisory (Ogimaawabiitong) · Kenora, ON

The Makate Waagamichiwanang Gakinaa’amaatiwin Youth & Family Wellness Camp is a vibrant, land-based space where culture, wellness, and connection come together to support community healing, with a strong focus on diabetes awareness and prevention. It follows the Seven Sacred Grandfather Teachings: love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, and truth, helping families connect back to their culture while improving the health and well-being.

Camp programming includes a Walking Trail and Annual Walk for Truth and Reconciliation; seasonal celebrations and feasts; an on-site garden with Learn to Cook programs; a Wild Rice Harvesting Station for the harvesting and processing of Manoomin; new playground structures; and a Community Food Truck bringing healthy meals, camp-grown produce, and cooking classes to KCA communities.

Kenora Chiefs Advisory (Ogimaawabiitong) provides culturally appropriate services wholistically across its affiliated First Nations in Treaty 3, Northwestern Ontario, working to ensure the survival of the Anishinaabe way for future generations. Its Anishinaabe Diabetes Education Program takes part in the Camp.

Gitga’at Youth Land-Based and Cultural Continuity Diabetes Prevention Approach

Gitga’at Health Department · Hartley Bay, BC

This Gitga’at initiative engages children and youth in culture, community, and traditional food systems through land-based learning, providing a way of guiding youth to engage with land, culture, and language to promote health and well-being. In a remote community with no grocery store, where younger generations have had fewer opportunities to engage in their food systems, it responds to concerns the community has voiced about youth diets and diabetes risk.

With the support of Elders and community members, youth are guided through harvesting and the full spectrum of food-system engagement, deepening their connection and self-identity in Ts’msyen culture; after the first year, they gather to share their experiences with the community in the feast hall.

The Gitga’at are a Ts’msyen Nation in Hartley Bay, British Columbia, four hours south of Prince Rupert by boat, whose remoteness has helped preserve immense cultural knowledge. The project is overseen by the Gitga’at Health Department in collaboration with the Hartley Bay School.

Koeye River Youth Camp

Qqs Projects Society · Bella Bella, BC

The Koeye River Youth Camp builds an environment where Heiltsuk youth learn healthy living through experience and community rather than instruction alone, strengthening their physical, emotional, cultural, and spiritual wellbeing by rooting the approach in Heiltsuk knowledge systems and relationships to land.

Camp staff share teachings about harvesting, processing, and preserving ancestral foods and maintaining respectful relationships with living food systems, and youth are guided to harvest and prepare ancestral foods and medicines themselves, building confidence and practical skills. Daily physical activity is woven in through land-based recreation such as hiking, paddling, swimming, harvesting, games, and cultural activities, grounded in joy, purpose, and connection to place.

The camp is run by Qqs Projects Society, a Heiltsuk charitable organization in Bella Bella, British Columbia, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, which since 1999 has created opportunities for Heiltsuk youth and families to thrive in community and on the land.

IDHC Youth Programming

Indigenous Diabetes Health Circle · Thorold, ON

IDHC Youth Programming supports Indigenous youth-led engagement with youth and youth workers across Ontario and beyond, developing community capacity to educate, train, and support awareness, prevention, and living well with diabetes among Indigenous youth.

To build a strong and sustainable youth program, the Indigenous Diabetes Health Circle maps youth programs and services across the province, convenes a youth steering committee to guide the work, and shares resources through workshops and outreach, helping youth develop and maintain positive, culturally grounded health behaviours they can carry throughout their lives.

The Indigenous Diabetes Health Circle is an Indigenous-led not-for-profit in Thorold, Ontario, with a mandate to strengthen Indigenous community capacity to reduce the impact of diabetes now and in future generations. For 30 years it has provided diabetes wellness resources and programming grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and doing alongside clinical approaches, supporting wellness across all stages of life.

Youth Food Sovereignty and Diabetes Prevention Initiative

Driftpile Cree Nation · Driftpile, AB

Driftpile Cree Nation’s youth food sovereignty initiative reconnects young people with traditional Cree food systems while building practical skills in growing, harvesting, preparing, and understanding healthy foods, with a focus on hands-on learning, relationships, and healthy choices that are relevant and accessible. It is a direct response to food sovereignty being identified by Driftpile leadership and community members as a priority, amid a growing disconnect from traditional foods and land-based knowledge among youth.

Run by the Nation’s Health and Healing Department and working with roughly 25 to 30 youth, the project brings together land-based learning such as gardening, harvesting, and a supported hunting camp day; cooking sessions focused on simple, affordable, culturally relevant meals; diabetes prevention education; the involvement of Elders and Knowledge Keepers; and pop-up awareness activities that lead into a shared community meal.

Driftpile Cree Nation is a Treaty 8 First Nation of approximately 1,200 members on the southern shore of Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta.

Food is Medicine: Youth Cooking for Diabetes Prevention

Ulnooweg Education Centre · Halifax, NS (delivered in Millbrook First Nation)

Food is Medicine is an eight-week, hands-on cooking program that supports Indigenous youth in building the skills, knowledge, and confidence to make healthy food choices and prevent chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes.

Through weekly cooking sessions, youth learn to prepare affordable meals while reconnecting with traditional foods, cultural knowledge, and community practices, and each participant receives take-home food bags and kitchen tools so the learning continues at home and in the community. The program is delivered in Millbrook First Nation, a Mi’kmaw community in central Nova Scotia.

It is run by the Ulnooweg Education Centre, an Indigenous-led organization rooted in Mi’kmaw ways of knowing and being, which works with communities across Mi’kma’ki to support youth and adults in reconnecting with land-based knowledge, traditional food systems, and agriculture.

Tłı̨chǫ Diabetes and Wellness Initiative

Tłı̨chǫ Government Department of Healing and Community Wellness · Behchokǫ̀, NT

The Tłı̨chǫ Diabetes and Wellness Initiative delivers culturally grounded diabetes education, wellness programming, and community-based prevention across all Tłı̨chǫ communities, focusing on youth, families, and high-risk populations.

The initiative is expanding with youth-focused initiatives, family-based wellness, and increased physical activity, including Youth and Family Workshops, land-based programming, healthy lunch and supper programs, community surveys and engagement, capacity building, and hybrid and virtual sessions. This builds on previous work of culturally grounded education, hands-on workshops, on-the-land activities, and healthy lunch and supper programs, which increased awareness, engagement, and knowledge of diabetes prevention and management.

The initiative is delivered by the Tłı̨chǫ Government Department of Healing and Community Wellness, the governing authority of the four communities of Tłı̨chǫ Lands of Behchokǫ, Whati, Gamètì, and Wekweètì, all in the Northwest Territories.