Last November, we, the Student Council at Tom Longboat Junior PS, were given a wonderful opportunity to participate in the Community Builders Youth Leadership Symposium. We learned many things such as how to be a good friend and the importance of being understanding of all people no matter what their culture, background or gender. We also met lots of awesome people and made some new friends. Reflecting back on our time at the Symposium, here are some of the things we had to say...
What are the most important ideas and skills that you learned from Community Builders? How can these ideas and skills be helpful in your school and community?
The most important idea I have learned is the skill to help people and being an A.L.L.Y. I feel that it’s very important for our school and community because people aren’t being themselves because they’re afraid of getting bullied. Since we learned how to be an ally, we can help them and so, they would have some self-confidence and pride. When they have this, they would have more courage to be themselves and maybe they would help others using this technique. – D.Mal
Importance of allies: Why is it important that people learn to be allies? What sort of a difference can allies make?
It is important that people learn to become allies because in this society today, you never know who you can trust. Becoming an ally, they will know that you will always have their backs and support them during hard times. During times when somebody is being bullied, they might feel as though they’re alone and nobody wants to help them. But by becoming an ally, that might change. Having somebody as a friend can lead the victims of bullying to have more confidence in themselves and give them the strength to tell the bully to stop. Sometimes, when the victims don’t have an ally, they might feel outnumbered, especially when it's a whole gang fighting one person and with an ally they might feel comfort. - Voldy
Power of youth leadership: Why is youth leadership important?
Youth Leadership can be very important because as a developing youth, youth leadership can mean self-leadership. Youth leadership can help our future leaders to build up confidence and independent thinking. Another reason why it is important is because it can develop our community. Without youth leadership, there will be no one to help improve the world. - Hermione
How have you used your leadership and/or ally skills? Do you have an ally story to share?
I have used my leadership skills/ ally skills in my life. One time during church, we were playing games during youth. One of my friends asked another boy if she could borrow his basketball. The boy said, “No.” The girl asks, “Why?”
“Because you don't even know how to play basketball. If you don't, what is the point of you trying?” “Well, maybe if I do play, I can get better.” “Well, I am not giving the ball to you.”
I come in and say, “You know we can all share, right? And what is making you do this?”
He says, “Well my older brother never lets me play with his action figures, and I guess I didn't want anyone to play with my stuff.”
I say, “We can all share, including you.” We then had an awesome game of basketball. - MLF
How do you hope to use your skills in the future?
I hope to use my leadership abilities around the world helping protect children around the world that have diseases with the organization Doctors Without Borders. It is just overall a great program with an amazing cause. It provides children around the world in third world countries with free healthcare, medicine, and surgery. - T.R.
What is your dream for your school and your community?
My dream in this school is to make it fair. It needs to be fair because not everyone has a nice life but they need one. An example for this is say when a person is a different skin colour or they are just different, they get made fun of and this is not nice of fair.
The last things is that we need to learn to be an A.L.L.Y always no matter what situation is. -TINA <3
We would like to give a big thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make the Community Builders Workshop such a great experience and for having us there.