Students have tremendous potential to be ambassadors for change and lead meaningful action. What is the best way to educate, engage and empower youth to bring about positive change in the world?

The best way to educate, engage and empower youth to bring positive change in the world is to sensitize them to real life scenarios such as cases, involvement in political discussions or debates and to make them participate in the world's current state in different disciplines such as economy, politics and social-cultural aspects. To achieve this through change, students must be able to lead others with meaningful actions using their creativity, charisma, and their sense of leadership to be able to resolve and help find solutions that senior employees have trouble figuring out. On the same note, student must have an open mind and be able to grow as individuals to become better people and to have the skills necessary to perform at their best in the "real" world. This being said, they must have the proper tools to develop their thinking skills and to comprehend the logistic of the current world we live in. So, to be able to have all the necessary skills, the best way to learn is on the field with other people who already have the experience and the knowledge of positive change. In other words, students should be formed correctly and partake in others in different projects and work to learn from other's mistakes and their success. Classes in universities or colleges would be recommended as they could learn valuable information and have a different perspective of the world. Also, they could join or form clubs and invite people, engaging them, to be able to have discussions and have a chance to express their opinions and learn to respect others in their point of view. To better engage and empower youth, we should encourage students to talk freely about our social problems that we have as a community and to value their knowledge, as youth often bring new solutions and ideas that older citizens may have not thought of. Change is good, as long as it doesn't aggravate the current situation. Finally, students should learn to cooperate with others that share their perspective on such problems as they might find similarities in the way they see the current state of things. To help them do this, they should explain to others the reasons why and be able to demonstrate new ways to handle and resolve these dilemmas. If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.

What is the most important action you’ve taken as a student to create change? What was the result?

As a student, I have participated in many clubs and associations to help those in my community and my environment. I have proposed projects such as recycling in Universities (with others), I participated in recycling and picking up garbage in my neighborhood (with other companies such as Tim Hortons and with the City of Ottawa) to help make our "green" spaces more livable. The most important aspect that I have taken as student to create change, is presenting some ideas to the community of Ottawa on how to reduce waste, help recycle effectively and how to use minimal resources to help our Planet regenerate itself faster (from our wastes and destruction). In doing so, I have opened eyes of many entrepreneurs and companies on how we should make these changes more effective as the methods currently used are often not recommended or not the best to sustain long term environmental sustainability. In doing so, I have created an environment suitable for every individual to develop an open mind and be able to understand the consequences of our actions. I believe that I have achieved this by raising awareness to a problem we currently fight and need much improvement.