Youth Changing the World School Program
SOPAR’s Youth Changing the World (YCW) is a program aimed at getting students involved in making a real difference in the world.
By providing teachers with all the tools and support they need, the program allows teachers to mobilize their students and involving them in awareness and fundraising activities in the context of a solidarity initiative in rural India
YCW is a good opportunity for your students to better understand the challenges we all face in this world, while taking concrete actions that respond to urgent needs of the most disempowered people in another part of the planet.
SOPAR invites the collaboration of young people to transform the living conditions of villagers in the rural regions of the south of India, who are trying to subsist below the poverty line. The multiple, immediate, real and sustainable impacts of their project on the life of these villagers awakens youth to their power to really “change the World”.
By participating in the YCW program, you are choosing to capitalize on youth’s eagerness and capacity to be part of solutions, to take concrete action «so that things that do not work really move along…»
READY FOR ACTION?
- STEP ONE: Choose your project
- STEP TWO: Register
- STEP THREE: Implementation
Offer your students the opportunity to experience a formative, exciting and memorable adventure that will:
- Develop their openness to the world through an act of solidarity
- Make them aware of the real life conditions of those they help
- Experience teamwork focused on a common cause
- Appreciate the inner feeling of satisfaction born from an act of altruism
- Recognize the difference between charity and solidarity
- Reinforce their self-confidence and their capacity to make a difference in the world
- Discover and appreciate new cultures
- Understand the larger ramifications of their action: offer other youth the opportunity and capacity to join them in building a better world for all. etc.,
RESOURCES
Looking to get your students involved in a project that will enable them to make a real difference in the world?
REGISTER YOUR SCHOOL TODAY!
Since its inception in 1999, close to 750 schools across Canada have participated in this innovative program. That’s over 1,35 million dollars raised and close to 310,000 of India’s poorest women, children and communities that have gained access to clean drinking water thanks to the efforts of 72 000 young canadian students.
“SOPAR-Bala Vikasa’s Youth Changing the World school program allowed me to develop team spirit and leadership. It gave me confidence to overcome my shyness. I felt privileged to work with people for a magnificent cause. I now realize that we can have a positive influence on the lives of thousands of people who live far away from us and that giving back is the greatest gift in the world.”
-Anne Siobhan Rousseau- student (Quebec)
”The YCW Program is an incredible and concrete opportunity for our students to open up to our world and realize the strength of solidarity. My students were profoundly touched to see the photos of the water well built because of their efforts. They understood that their work had a real impact. I think they will become better citizens because of YCW.”
– Brenda Scarlett – teacher (Ontario).
Watch the video – students of De Rochebelle High School in Quebec City visited their water well project in India
