Local elementary students may not take away something from every speaker at the Youth Symposium 2019, but an Olympic champion hopes the diversity of speakers at the event will lead to every kid being touched by at least one of their messages.
On Tuesday, about 1,500 Grade 8 students from a number of schools in Guelph and Wellington County attended the tenth Youth Symposium hosted by Child Witness Centre. Schools from both the Catholic and public school boards were represented at the one-day event.
The organization’s executive director, Laura Muirhead, told GuelphToday the positive real-life messages the kids hear from speakers at the event tends to resonate more, because they aren’t coming from parents and teachers.
“They are able to take those messages back into the classroom and they still have a couple of months before they go to high school, to reinforce those messages or build on them,” said Muirhead.
Children learn about citizenship, leadership, facing adversity, pursuing excellence and other real life experiences through the speakers featured Tuesday at Galaxy Cinemas on Woodlawn Road West.
Child Witness Centre is able to bring some of the speakers back year after year because the event is attended by Grade 8 students who will only see it once, said Muirhead.
The cost to the students is $10, which allows the organization to bring in professional public speakers.
“We are able to do that because we have sponsors like the Guelph Community Foundation and Co-operators, who help to offset that cost,” said Muirhead.
Four-time Olympic women’s hockey player Becky Kellar-Duke’s appearance was made possible because of a sponsorship by Royal Bank of Canada’s athlete speaker program.
Kellar-Duke told GuelphToday that her message to children was not only focussing on the triumphs, but also the loses that eventually led her there.
“It started when I was a girl, when people told me I shouldn’t play hockey,” said Kellar-Duke.
At the age of 12 Kellar-Duke hung up her figure skates in favour of hockey equipment.
“Failure usually creates success. I show my Olympic silver medal before I show them the olympic gold medal, so they can understand what created the culture of having to work harder,” she said. “I did have one girl come up to me and told me my talk really touched her because she has aspirations that are not normal or feminine.”
Andy Thibodeau became a teacher before he began to do public speaking professionally. His message on Tuesday was encouraging children not to loose their enthusiasm once they enter high school and to stay involved in clubs, teams and charities.
“I tell them to keep their ‘pick me, pick me’ attitude when they answer questions. Wrong leads to right and when you make the jump to high school math class, English class or geography class, start to answer questions,” said Thibodeau. ““Ask questions. If you don’t get it — ask. A life-changing question could be ‘can you go over that one more time?’”
Former Waterloo Region Police officer Debb Bodkin told students about her personal journey in law enforcement that began with a dream in Grade 9.
“My passion was to become a police officer — it took me a long time to get there, but then doors opened up that I could only have imagined,” Bodkin told GuelphToday.
After 24 years in policing, Bodkin became an investigator working in war-torn countires, doing interviews and meeting incredible people along the way.
“I talk a little about forensics, about hatred and racism, standing up for others. Basicaly the massage is for them to do anything they are passionate about. Find your part and do what you can to make the world a better place,” said Bodkin. “You don’t have travel across the world, you can do it right here at home.”
In total, 11 presentations were offered to the Grade 8 students, with time allowing each group to hear from three of them.
Child Witness Program offers programming in Waterloo Region, Guelph and Wellington County. The Youth Symposium has been conducted in Waterloo Region for 16 years and expanded to Guelph and Wellington County 10 years ago.
Kellar-Duke said it is important to have a diverse group of speakers to give kids a greater opportunity to get a takeaway from the event.
“I could talk and some kids could say it’s not for them, but I feel like — with the group of speakers — somebody is going to reach each kid. I think that’s one of the positives from this,” she said.
