Downeast Youth Action Team

Healthy Acadia in partnership with the Maine Youth Action Network (MYAN) convenes the Downeast Youth Action Team*, a youth-driven platform that connects young people ages 14-18 from all over Downeast Maine with peers and youth allies, and provides for them to share, explore, and build upon specific skills, resources, and opportunities to that serve to develop and support their leadership abilities. Downeast Youth Action Team is a multifaceted, youth-driven movement that challenges barriers and brainstorms around issues of civic engagement, substance prevention, healthy habits, social activism, equity, responsibility, and accountability. 

The Downeast Youth Action Team plays a key role in planning and organizing youth engagement and leadership opportunities in our communities, including Healthy Acadia’s DownEast Team Leadership Camp (DETLC). By engaging young people as important stakeholders in our communities, they will become more engaged in the discussions of communal issues and will be able to explore and provide innovative sustainable solutions and be poised to influence and initiate action.  

Are you a parent, guardian, caregiver, teacher, advisor, or ally of a teen ages 14-18 who may be interested in joining the Downeast Youth Action Team? Our goal is to recruit one or more students from every high school in Hancock and Washington counties who may be interested in becoming engaged in community development and in building their leadership and advocacy skills. The team meets remotely via Zoom and connects online through Downeast Youth Voices. Teens ages 14-18 interested in participating in the Downeast Youth Action Team can complete the registration form here.  

To learn more about youth engagement programs, please contact Corrie by email at Corrie.Hunkler@HealthyAcadia.org.  

*MYAN’s Youth Taking Action Program is a free, academic workshop series that provides youth groups with technical assistance and tailored training that supports their work. The toolkit offers practical suggestions and a flexible framework to navigate youth groups and advisors through their projects and/or campaigns. It also offers "next step suggestions" to support advisors in their role as skilled youth-adult partners. 

To explore this curriculum and learn how to incorporate this work in your school, classroom, or organization, please contact Corrie.Hunkler@HealthyAcadia.org.