Model City Hall

Model City Hall is a youth-led Canadian non-profit organization which began as a way to run an annual, one day conference in Toronto to simulate civic engagement among high school students. Students from all over Toronto chose a committee, where they simulated council chamber debates and collaborated to create documents with solutions to key municipal issues. The issues discussed corresponded with debate items at City Hall, in Coubcil and Committees. Councillors, Trustees and non-profit agents were invited to participate in our collaborative committees, given the opportunity to hear directly what Toronto youth had to say, thus contributing to the creation of positive dialogue and relationships between the decision makers of today and tomorrow. Today, Model City Hall is primarily based in #HamOnt and has brought its mission of making municipal politics accessible to youth to life through meaningful collaborations with community organizations, local Councillors, MPs and MPPs, the Office of the Mayor, and the City’s Community Strategies Team. Model City Hall serves as the programming provider for the City’s annual HamOntYouth Summit, recruiting and training 25+ volunteers to support facilitation and working alongside 7+ City Departments and community organizations to inform the design of discussion workshops that invite youth to engage with and reimagine key municipal issues, policy planning, and program delivery. Similarly, Model City Hall works directly with members of Council and the Office of the Mayor - and with support from the Community Strategies team - is able to provide similar programming and the opportunity for youth to directly engage with elected officials at annual Hamilton Youth Town Halls.