Our Story
Apathy is Boring is a non-partisan, charitable organization that supports and educates youth to be active and contributing citizens in Canada’s democracy.
Our vision is a Canada where every single young person is a change-maker in their everyday life, and meaningfully involved and included at every level of democracy. This is more than just voting. It is about setting up young people to take charge of the conditions they live in.
Our Values
Youth as Decision Makers
We create space for youth in decision making roles. We support and encourage governments and institutions to do the same.
Being Accountable
We are accountable to young Canadians. We remain authentic, open to debate and discussion. We are transparent about our successes and failures.
Reaching The Unengaged
We do the hard work to reach and activate unengaged youth. We recognize that systems of oppression affect youth’s ability to engage in democracy in different ways and don’t assume universal experiences. We believe that having more inclusive participation in our democracy is one way to have a more equitable society.
Being Accessible
We provide low risk entry points. We go to where young people are and don’t expect them to come to us. We consider how our activities and resources support broad participation, where possible breaking down physical, linguistic or visual barriers.
Providing Information
We provide information in an accessible way to educate and inform young people. We don’t believe in preaching, we value non-partisanship. We provide road maps, showing how the process works
Being Intergenerational
We value intergenerational relationships, and seek out support from elders and community leaders.
Our Approach
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Gather Knowledge
Every activity undertaken by Apathy is Boring begins with a discussion of the research that we need to do. Starting with this “homework” has two benefits: it ensures that we’ve correctly identified and analyzed the problems we’re tackling, and it helps us be efficient. We draw on knowledge from both practitioners and researchers. If there’s a lack of information, we start by conducting our own research. -
Experiment & Innovate
Apathy is Boring is not afraid to experiment and innovate. Before we commit to a new activity, we test different ways to accomplish our mission. We also gather program level and strategic level data for each of our activities and programs. This data is used not only to evaluate the performance of each activity and program, but also allows us to identify high- impact solutions for the problems we’re tackling. -
Maximize Impact
Apathy is Boring is a social innovator in the field of youth engagement. After testing and refining an activity, our next step is to maximize its impact. When we have the capacity to do so, we expand the reach of our own programs. Otherwise, we give our ideas away. By taking this “open source” approach and sharing our knowledge and strategies with other youth engagement stakeholders, Apathy is Boring can affect far more youth than any one organization could ever reach directly.