The Power of Thinking Big:
Barrie North Collegiate Youth in Action Group

Barrie North Collegiate Institute

In order to impact change on a global level, you have to start on a small scale. In the case of a small group of passionate Barrie North Collegiate students, they started at their very own high school and have since made a huge impact globally.

In 2003, a group of 10 Barrie North Collegiate students heard Craig Kielburger’s speech and were inspired to found their own Free The Children Youth in Action group. With the Free The Children slogan of "Children Helping Children" as their mantra, the group has since grown to 40 members.
 
In just three years, Barrie North has raised the money to build two schools: one in Kenya and one soon to be constructed in Sierra Leone.

Their premiere fundraiser was a coffeehouse that tapped high school musical talent and enjoyed immense success, becoming a semi-annual event. A favourite fundraiser of the entire school is the annual 24-hour Famine, in which participants raise money through donor pledges and for one day choose to live in the conditions that many children around the world experience every day. The most extensive fundraiser is the School-in-a-Jar campaign, which challenges homerooms to collect change with the goal of securing a “brick” on the large Free The Children Brick by Brick poster, which measures the students' progress toward building a school.

The students at Barrie North Collegiate recognize that a small group of youth has the power to change the world. Way to go!

Buttons for Bricks:
Northeast Kings Youth in Action Group

Alex Arbuckle, a Northeast Kings Youth in Action Group member, sells buttons for a school in Sierra Leone.

The Northeast Kings Education Centre Youth in Action Group in Canning, Nova Scotia, has been working hard all year to reach their goal of raising $6,000 for a school in Sierra Leone. They are over halfway there and going strong!

Two artistic members have created buttons with quotations and statistics on issues such as global awareness and child poverty. They have had great success selling them at a fair trade coffee shop and a local market, selling 400 buttons in the past month and raising $600 toward their school.

With their incredible creativity, Northeast Kings students will achieve their goal of building a school in no time!