Wellness Health and Youth (WHY) Collective  

The Wellness, Health, and Youth (WHY) Collective is an Indigenous-led project working alongside Indigenous youth to define what health and wellness mean to them, and how Indigenous youth well-being should be understood, measured, and supported locally, nationally, and globally. The WHY Collective is grounded in the belief that Indigenous youth are experts in their own lives. This research supports Indigenous youth to co-create an Indigenous youth health and wellness indicator framework that reflects youth priorities, identities, cultures, relationships, lands, and futures. These indicators move beyond biomedical measures to centre relational, cultural, emotional, spiritual, and community-defined dimensions of wellness.

Through culturally grounded gatherings and sharing circles, Indigenous youth lead conversations about what health and wellness look and feel like, identify priority indicator areas, and collectively reach consensus on an Indigenous youth-defined framework. This approach maintains the strengths of consensus-building methods while centring Indigenous knowledge sovereignty, relational accountability, cultural safety, and youth leadership 

The WHY Collective is also part of an Indigenous Youth Global Collaborative, working in solidarity with Indigenous youth across regions and countries to uplift Indigenous youth voices globally and contribute to international conversations on Indigenous youth health equity. Through this collaborative, Indigenous youth share knowledge, strengthen collective leadership, and advance youth-led visions for wellness and self-determination beyond national borders. This work is explicitly aligned with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and Indigenous rights-based frameworks, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action, the MMIWG2S+ calls to justice, and BC DRIPA. The WHY Collective supports Indigenous youth self-determination, participation in decision-making, and the right to define health and well-being according to Indigenous worldviews.

At its core, the WHY Collective is about shifting power to ensure that Indigenous youth are leaders, knowledge holders, and change-makers shaping the future of Indigenous health and wellness.

WHY Collective is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).