I am launching something super exciting in our neighbourhood – the Upstanders Academy: where kids build the skills & confidence to change the world by working on real life projects they are passionate about. It is an 8 week program aimed at children in grades 4 to 8. It’s all the awesome stuff we have been working on over the years with World-Changing Kids, in a more structured format, where the kids get the benefits of coming together every week to change the world!
We will work on passion projects that will make the world a better place. The children choose the topics that they want to work on and the actions they want to take to help in that area, and we provide the tools and resources needed to help them achieve their goals. In the last class, we present a showcase of the projects for family members and friends.
This follows our WCK philosophy of talking to kids about real life issues and then pairing that with an action they can take to help make things better. So, we talk about homelessness, and then we meet up with We Live in the Shadows on one of their biweekly street outreach missions to hand out warm clothes and blankets. Or we talk about refugees and then we work with Ropalo Circo Project to make sock puppets for them to take on their next trip to a refugee camp in Greece to bring play and joy to the kids living there.
We believe that by doing this, we will raise kids who are confident, passionate, inspired, and engaged citizens and leaders who know that they have the power to change the world for the better. As opposed to what we are seeing a lot of lately, which is youth who are anxious, depressed, apathetic and disengaged because the world seems overwhelmingly bad and they don’t know where they fit into the solution.
I also have to give credit to the amazing Rebecca Chambers for a huge amount of inspiration for this idea. Check out this CBC article about the awesome work she is doing in her classes.
Check out our Facebook event page for more info.
And click here to register.