Navigating Healthcare: Imagining our Community

Background  Challenges  Strategies  Considerations  Our Voices

What would a community with accessible care for all youth be like?

As a part of our Navigating Healthcare project, we asked 11 youth to share their hopes and goals for a community where care is accessible for all youth. The following stitches together our words to create a world where this exists and thrives.

We are curious and would love to know, what would this community be like for you?

This community has open doors. Our needs are met. As neighbors, we are friends, and we look after and tend to each other as loved ones. We water each other’s plants. We cook each other meals. We look after children. We walk our elders home. We pick up groceries for one another and share what we have. We care when others are left behind.

When we need care, we can access it quickly. No backup plans. No safety plans because we do not need them. It doesn’t matter who is hurt, we care for them. There is no shame, no social repercussions for simply existing in a body with needs. We understand that everything that happens to us is valid and through this, seek care without fear.

When we seek care, we see ourselves and our peers represented. We value peer support systems as we value professional supports services. We are treated like human beings. Our bodily autonomy is respected. We center our intersecting identities, diverse access needs, and lived experiences. We leave with clarity.

We show up for each other. We are not trying to be guarded against each other or trying to protect ourselves from each other. We are not scared of HIV and Hep C. We see its reality. It is just a virus. It does not label us as a person. Our status is not an identifying factor. We are seen for who we are. It does not determine where we belong.

We have unpacked and worked through our privileges. We see each other as full and complete humans. The concepts of gender and sex are infinite in our community. Our cultures are respected with care and intention. We are rooted in our understandings of consent and harm.

In our community, the idea of policing does not exist. White supremacy, capitalism, and social stigmas do not exist. We would not need this resource. Instead, we are genuinely curious about why we do the things that we do. We understand that harm is inherent because we are human.

We step out of scarcity into abundance.

We are a collective.

We thrive.

We have energy.

We share joy.

There is enough room for all of us.

Bug Cru created the header image featured here. This image joins 11 youths’ ideas of a world where healthcare is accessible and all the community healing, joy, and care that can come from this.