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Youth Challenge International is proud to put forward the following call for nominations for the fifth annual YCI Volunteer of the Year Award.
The award is presented in celebration of youth volunteerism to one Canadian and one international youth. Award recipients are individuals who set an example by:
• Volunteering in connection with YCI between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009. (Volunteers may be office volunteers, members of the VAN or VAC, volunteers with YCI’s partner organizations or alumni of YCI’s international volunteer program.)
• Active and continued involvement in community volunteer activities.
• Demonstrating characteristics of global citizenship—including respect and values diversity, and the willingness to act for equity and sustainability.
Nominations can come from anyone within the YCI stakeholder community. To nominate an individual, please submit a short (150-250 words) biography that describes how the nominee’s past and current skills, experience, interests and qualities meet the above criteria.
Please submit your nominations by January 15, 2009 to generalinfo@yci.org
Enter YCI’s Challenge 4 Change video competition and win over $500 in prizes!
If you are one of YCI’s preparing volunteers, a member of the Volunteer Action Network, or a YCI alumnus, we want to hear from you!
Create a short video about your global youth development work experience in relation to one or more of these 4 topics:
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Three videos will be chosen as winners and will be posted on YCI’s website and YouTube Channel, as well as used in other communication materials. In addition to being featured across multiple sites, winners will also receive:
- 1st place – $250, a YCI prize pack and a Pentax Optio E80 Camera
- 2nd place – $150, a YCI prize pack and a Digital Picture Frame
- Volunteers’ Choice Award – $100 and a YCI prize pack
We will also give you a chance to cast your votes for volunteer choice video of the year which will be awarded with the volunteer of the year award!
Ready? Set? Go! Here are some ideas to help get you started:
- Global Citizenship:
• What does it mean to be a global citizen?
• How do YCI’s domestic and international programs embody global citizenship? - Global Volunteerism
• Are you a returned volunteer? What was your project like? How did affect you?
• Are you an alumni? Where did your experiences with YCI take you professionally or personally?
• Are you a preparing volunteer? What made you want to get involved with YCI? - Local Volunteerism
• Now that you’ve returned to Canada, how are you turning your global volunteerism into local action?
• Why did your YCI experience make you want to become involved in your home community?
• For preparing volunteers—how do you plan to turn your local volunteerism into global action? - Your Project’s Sector Focus
YCI’s programs are designed to meet the needs of youth affected by poverty through five integrated sectors:
• Economic development
• Education
• Leadership development
• Environment
• Health
SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES
Your video will be judged based on the effectiveness and creativity in the communication of your message, as well as production quality.
Criteria:
• Video submission must come from members of the YCI community, including Volunteer Action Network members, alumni or preparing volunteers
• Videos must feature the Youth Challenge International logo (please contact YCI at generalinfo@yci.org for a high-res version of the logo)
• Use only original or royalty-free music and images in your video.
• Must be no more than five minutes in length.
• Videos may also be submitted through email or mail.
• Videos may be submitted by individuals, or by teams.
To enter YCI’s Video Competition, please upload your video onto Youtube and send the link, along with your contact information, a short bio and a signed copy of the Declaration and Release form (click here to download the form), to YCI atgeneralinfo@yci.org. (Videos may also be submitted through email or mail.) Submit your video submission no later than March 25, 2010, 9:00 AM EST.
All entries become the property of Youth Challenge International, including all intellectual property rights, and will not be returned. It should be understood that this involves that Youth Challenge International will have the right to use all submissions they receive as they see fit. Entrants will also be required to represent that all persons connected with the production of the video and all other persons whose names, voices, photographs, likenesses, work, services and materials have been used in the video have authorized the use of their names, voices, photographs, likenesses, performances and data in connection with the distribution, advertising, promotion and exploitation of the video. All entrants shall submit a signed Declaration and Release and waiver of moral rights attaching to the work(s), which is part of this entry form, with their entry.
With over 3,000 alumni in action all across Canada, the kind of news we receive about where our volunteers and staff have gone can be overwhelming and, at times, awe-inspiring. Maggie McDonnell, a former YCI field staff member in Tanzania, is no exception to this rule. (Maggie is on the far left in the above photo, taken during the World AIDS 2008 activities in Mexico City.) She’s currently participating in the Sauve Scholarship program in Montreal. You can read more about Maggie here.
Each year, the Sauvé Scholars Program invites up to 14 young leaders (30 years old or less) from across the globe who want to change the world, to come to Montreal for the academic calendar year. They live together, have unlimited access to McGill University’s academic programs and other resources – including lectures, conferences and events suited to the advancement of their individual professional and intellectual goals – all the while benefiting from exchanges with their fellow Scholars. The program is still accepting applications until November 30, so if you’d follow in Maggie’s footsteps, check out http://www.sauvescholars.org.
While a Sauvé Scholar, Maggie will pursue study in social entrepreneurship, indigenous health, transnational feminism, and the role youth are playing in participatory research for community development. . .Specific projects Maggie will be working on include developing a participatory, youth-led chocolate making cooperative in Zanzibar, as well as collaborating with female athletes in Tanzania to create empowering sport opportunities for women. . .
In light of our recent 20th anniversary celebration (and our $20 for 20 years fundraising campaign!), this story is worth sharing.
Alan Shain was a volunteer with YCI in Costa Rica in 1993, when YCI was only four years old. Not only does Alan’s testimonial give insight into what volunteering internationally with a disability may be like, his account also give a snapshot into what volunteering on a YCI project would have been like 16 years ago. Read Alan’s story here.
“Our project group consisted of fourteen people (eleven participants and three staff members) from four countries including Canada, Costa Rica, English Guyana and Australia. None of us had met before. Our first community project was to construct a dormitory out of prefabricated material. We were working and living in a remote community of 400 people situated on the Southwest coast of Costa Rica for six weeks. . .“
20 Years of Leadership. 20 Years of Innovation. 20 Years of Partnership. 20 Years of Youth Development. 20 Years of Positive Change.
Where will the next 20 years take us?
Since 1989, YCI has sent more than 3,000 volunteers overseas to work alongside youth on environment, health, leadership development, education and economic development projects in 15 countries worldwide.
Celebrate YCI’s 20th anniversary of building communities and leaders by donating just $20. Help us reach our goal of $20,000 to support our local and global youth development programs.
Why donate to Youth Challenge International?
Youth Challenge International is a leading global youth development organization that promotes youth innovation to drive positive change. Building on 20 years of experience, YCI’s programs are designed to meet the needs of youth affected by poverty through five integrated sectors: economic development, education, leadership development, environment and health.
In the last 20 years, YCI has:
- Provided more than 3000 volunteers with the opportunity to develop leadership skills and effect positive change in their local and global communities.
- Worked in 15 countries alongside more than 16 local partner organizations.
- Reached thousands of beneficiary youth through HIV/AIDS, sexual reproductive health, education, employability and leadership programs.
- Engaged hundreds of young people on team-based action projects that encourage global citizenship through the Volunteer Action Network.
- Participated in countless community development and conservation programs, including the construction of schools, water and sanitation, and ecotourism projects.
- Facilitated 37 International Youth Internships, which provide young people with their first substantive overseas work experience.
Your tax-deductible donation of $20 will go towards supporting YCI’s local and global youth development organizations.
We engage youth in creating solutions to the challenges they face. YCI incorporates youth development, volunteerism, partnership, equity and advocacy into all that we do.
Here are a few ways you can donate:
• By mail – send in a cheque or credit card information to Youth Challenge International, 20 Maud St., Suite 305, Toronto, ON, M5V 2M5
Please address cheque donations to Youth Challenge International, with a memo of 20 year donation.
• By phone – call us toll-free 1.877.504.3370
• In person – visiting our office
• Online – visit our website at www.yci.org/20years
To read more about YCI’s programs and how YCI uses your donations, please visit www.yci.org
Sarah, YCI’s administrative assistant, finished up her last day at YCI two weeks ago. Apart from keeping YCI smoothly operating, her time here was also full of big announcements–first, she got in to grad school. (Three times, to be exact. But just for the record, we only had cake once.) And then, Sarah announced that this summer, she would be joining the Otesha Project on a bike ride across Alberta and British Columbia.
Read about how Sarah chose to engage in volunteer work in Canada on her blog, Being the Change.
Good luck Sarah! We miss you!
“I am in Calgary! Woo! After a very long couple of days, I am so glad to be here and settling in before my big ride begins tomorrow. . .”
Today started off like any other typical day. After studying a little for my economics course before work at the local King Street Starbucks, I made my way to the office, battling the morning rush-hour traffic, with a double-tall vanilla non-fat latte in hand (yes, I know, I’m THAT kind of Starbucks customer!).
I was mid-way through a full day of e-news writing, email-answering, and bank-depositing, when some bad news fell into my lap. I was causally checking my personal email after lunch, and learned that I had been unceremoniously rejected from one of the graduate programs I had applied to. I turned to my coworkers and, dejected, let them know that I no longer had as great of a chance of going to grad school in the fall. They gave me pats on the back and a couple of words of support and encouragement – talking about creating “plan Bs” and unabashedly ridiculing the school that had sent me the unfortunate news. I managed to crack a smile, thinking about how great the YCI team was for keeping my spirits high.
And then, not even 20 minutes later, I felt the need to check my email just once more. This time, I noticed an email from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario – another graduate school I had applied to. Before I even had the chance to click on it, the words “we are pleased to tell you” popped out at me from the subject line, and I immediately knew what I would find inside!
With a whoop, I jumped out of my office chair, and right away the YCI staff were at my side, giving me hugs and high-fives. I couldn’t believe that in the span of half an hour, I had been rejected AND accepted to grad school!
Well, this called for a celebration. Myself and a couple of my colleagues headed down Queen Street West to a little place called Dufflet, an expensive pastry shop, and picked up the richest, most delicious chocolate mousse cake we could find (see accompanying photo – mmm). The YCI gang gathered around the lunchroom table and talked and laughed about our lives, the future, and all the awesome things that it can bring.
Sarah holding the delectable Dufflet chocolate mousse cake!
And to think, I was nearly hit by a cab this morning. It’s amazing what 20 minutes can do to change your day, and your life, in the most profound of ways!
- Sarah Tuckey, Administrative Assistant
This is my third month with YCI as the new International Programs Director and my first blog. After living away from Canada for the past four years and skipping the last four winters, its been great to be back in Toronto. The transition has been relatively seamless and I’ve really enjoyed being back.
Prior to working with YCI I spent time in Chad, Sierra Leone, Angola, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and Palestine, as well as York, England for a graduate degree in Post-war Reconstruction. I’ve been managing diverse programs in the field from health and education to de-mining, which has provided a great foundation in programming and management and will hopefully mean I’ll be well-placed to take on this new challenge here at YCI.
The past two months have been a steep learning curve. Leaning about YCI programs in East and West Africa as well as Central and South America, meeting staff and volunteers, participating in a strategic overview and budget design for the coming financial year have meant a busy and thorough induction. YCI has a long tradition of volunteer engagement, strong partner support and youth focused programming and the coming year will see a renewed commitment in how YCI views programming and how we can ensure maximum impact within the communities we work.
The IPD position includes oversight of staff in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda for our CIDA funded program as well as collaboration with out Alliance partners in South and Central America and the Group Leaders who facilitate volunteer groups. There is also a focus on financial management, reporting to donors and working on the quality and expansion of YCIs programs.
Next month I head back to the ‘Continent’ for a five-week trip to Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Uganda. An opportunity to see our programs up-close, meet our local partners and volunteers and assess the possibility of expanding YCI programs into Uganda. This will be the first time I’ve traveled as a visitor compared to being a field staff and have a lot to condense into a short time.
Ghana and Tanzania are new countries for me so I look forward, as always, to seeing a new place. I traveled briefly in Uganda and spent a lot of time in Kenya traveling back and forth from South Sudan and this will be my first time back after a long hiatus, and with four countries in five weeks, I’ll have lots of time in airports, on the road and back in the field. I can’t wait.
- Steve Cumming, International Programs Director
Woo hoo!! Hello from Western Canada! This is Laura writing – Rebecca and I are here in Edmonton with Butterfly 208 winner Lisa. We are participating in the 1st annual Global Youth Assembly. What a great city! We are having an excellent time. The GYA has been four days packed (I mean it – packed) full of speakers, workshops, music, culture and lots of energy.
We were able to deliver a workshop on Wednesday afternoon called “Kick-starting your Career in International Development: International Volunteer Work, Opportunities and Challenges.” We had an awesome turnout at our workshop and had a really fun time talking to people from all over Canada about the benefits of international volunteering. It seems that there is so much interest form people across Canada to travel abroad, make a difference, and contribute to a global community.
If you’ve ever been to a conference like the GYA, you’ll know that there is a certain type of energy and excitement when a group of people like this spend time together finding inspiration. We heard speakers like Kim Phuc (“the girl in the picture”) who was badly burned with napalm in Vietnam, and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (Its Dr. Rubin now) who was falsely sentenced to life in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. These speakers were inspiring, funny and uplifting as they shared their life stories with us. We found, however, that the most inspiring speakers were youth – just like us – who were actively changing their world.
I’d never heard of Sol Guy before, but apparently I should have. Sol used to work in the music industry and was supposed to be the next best producer… until he took a life-changing trip with War Child to Sierra Leone. Sol was impacted by this trip and decided to take off with a friend and travel the world in search of stories of youth who were leading real change in their communities. You wouldn’t believe the examples of youth he was able to find. From the mountain city of Macchu Picchu to the Kibera slum in Nairobi, to the City of God in Rio de Janeiro, or to the Amazon rainforest – Sol found young people making a difference. Turns out CTV and MTV were impressed with the footage he took, and signed up to make 8 episodes of the show titled “4Real” starting this fall. Sol was a great speaker and really rocked the house with his experiences – I can’t wait to hear more from him in the fall. Check out the website for more info (www.4real.com).
A big take-home message for me from this assembly has got to be about the power of hip-hop. I learned that Hip-Hop isn’t just a type of music, it isn’t even a movement, hip-hop is an existence. It is a way of looking at the world and a powerful method for responding to it. This is not the hip-hop of bling, drugs and cheap women. It is a real grassroots battle for change that’s happening worldwide right now.
We watched a (very cool) documentary called “Favela Rising” one night which showed a group of guys from a slum outside Rio de Jenerio. These guys saw that all their friends, brother and neighbours were turning to the drug trade as their only outlet and only way to make a living. They created a program called Afro Reggae which brought music, dance and drumming into the community. Afro Reggae sparked some serious change in behaviour from youth in the slum. It was inspiring.
We also heard from a guy named Stephen LeaFloor (aka. Buddha… he sorta looked like a Buddha – a really tough thugged out Buddha if you can imagine) Buddha has a group of youth who have started this program to bring hip-hop to the artic. Yeah – the artic. They go up to these fly-in communities and lead week long workshops on b-boying and MCing. They’ve found that after the youth from these communities tap into the message of hip-hop to persevere, battle and use your voice, there’s been a dramatic drop in suicide rates and drug abuse. Honestly I’ve never seen anything quite like it – a bunch of Inuit youth using traditional drums to breakdance to! Very powerful stuff.
The Assembly is coming to a close now, back to Toronto we go. It was a well spent 4 days in Edmonton. Really there were so many cool experiences I just don’t have time to tell you about. If you are interested to see more of what we did check out the assembly website at: www.youthassembly.ca.
Laura Gourley, Volunteer Program Administrator.
Celebrate International Youth Day 2007 – Make a world of difference.
The theme of this year’s International Youth Day is “Be seen, be heard: Youth Participation for Development.” Please join Youth Challenge International’s Volunteer Action Network in celebrating International Youth Day, on August 19th, 2007, from 12 pm – 4:30 pm at The Brunswick Theatre.
Highlights of the day include: an Art Exhibit, NGO Fair, Photos for Sale, and two Movie Screenings. We will be showing “Rocked: Sum 41 in Congo” (by War Child Canada) at 1:30 pm, and “Go Further” at 2:15 pm.
Address: 296 Brunswick Avenue, Second Floor (Bloor/Bathurst), Toronto ON
For more information, please contact Erin Nesbitt: erin@yci.org.
