Our mission is to transform the way that young people are engaged in shaping their cities and communities.

We envision cities where youth are involved in civic planning, shaping, and decision-making. Research and experience shows that a youth-engaged city is more resilient, sustainable, and innovative — not just for young people but for all current and future generations.

Click here to read our 2025-2027 Strategic Plan.

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 build meaningful relationships with youth, understand and support the needs of youth, and centre youth in the leadership of our organisation and in all programming.

Centre underrepresented and systematically excluded voices

We recognize how systemic racism, colonialism, ableism and other oppressive systems exclude many people from civic engagement on the basis of their identities. We commit to challenging the status quo and creating opportunities for youth that have been most systematically excluded in all of the work that we do.

Collaboration

We are informed by past and ongoing work in our broader community, and we actively seek out opportunities to support and work with other organisations and individuals to strengthen our impact.

Justice

Equity

Diversity

Decolonization

Inclusion

Our JEDDI Values

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Our JEDDI Values •

Our Commitment To Anti-Racism and Equity

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)

    • Trauma informed facilitation training (2025)

    • Restorative justice training (2025)

    • 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)

    • New compensation philosophy developed to align better with organizational values and transparency (2025)

    • Acquired Meeting Owl to allow for improved hybrid meetings (2025)

    • Four-day-work-week trialed and implemented (2025-2026)

    • New conflict navigation policy developed (2026)

    • Ongoing/Future: Additions to existing policies to centre equity

    • 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 (2024-2025)

    • Deliver first ever all-Black youth cohort of Urban ReVision in partnership with Hogan’s Alley Society (2026)

    • 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)

      • Urban ReVision Cohort 5 with Hogan's Alley Society and supported by BC Community Alliance and Jr Black Achievement Awards (2026)

    • 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.

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