2025's student project insights for BC's communities and organisations

"The feeling of belonging is a deep need for Squamish people: to feel connected to their land, history, culture, language, and tradition."

"Purpose is... felt when we celebrate each other."

"We approach this work with humility and kindness. Planning is not only technical - it's deeply relational... Listening, reciprocity, and trust is essential for meaningful Planning. Planning can be a path to healing."

"To embody decolonial Planning as two non-Indigenous Planners means many things. It means we don't take a position of telling a community what's best for them. Instead, we take a back seat, let the people that know their communities best lead. This centres their cultures, traditions, and knowledge."

"Planning is all about community: and so you need to bring community into the Planning work."

"Planning is cyclical: it's connected and holistic; it's focused on process."

"Community really was my curriculum."

"I urge you not to get comfortable in your discomfort; but to sit with it; to listen to what it teaches; and to allow the seed of resistance to grow, kindly and courageously, into inspired flowers of collective liberation."