Today's students will be the future caretakers of the world. That is why student voice is important. So we can make a difference. So we can learn how to positively impact the community and become responsible for the world around us. The HDSB Student Senate is all about bringing out that voice and today's Halton Youth Leadership Symposium helped students learn how to express their's.
HYLS is an annual event run by Student Senate. Two guest speakers give an opening and closing keynote respectively and senators run workshops designed to help students discover their leadership potential, making it a worthwhile experience for anyone. Plus, admission and food is free. The day started off with a few icebreakers run by some of the senators. The icebreakers helped wake up the audience and a glorious 20 second speech by Connor MacLean was easily one of the best improvised presentations I've ever seen.
After the icebreakers, we had a keynote from Andy Thibodeau. His presentation had high doses of humor, movie trivia, and powerful messages, balanced with the precision of a master in one great speech.
After the keynote, the students went to their first workshop. After a 40 minute lunch, students would go to their second workshops. Each had unique, powerful themes that helped the students learn how to apply various leadership traits in a new situation. For example, one of the workshops was Power of Failure, which would see students participate in various challenges designed to make them fail. But after being taught to learn from their mistakes, they would use their past failure to guide them to success. All the workshops had students meet scenarios where their leadership would be tested, which allowed each one of them to grow as leaders.
Here is a breakdown of the entire day.
The day closed with a final keynote from Becky Kellar-Duke, a former hockey player for the Olympics. She shared her story and gave an inspirational presentation, providing a fitting end to a great day.
Special thanks to everybody who made this possible. The senators from our school (Nyle Arora, Connor Maclean, Jayson Yan, Amy V, and Juice Eden), as well as senators from other schools all worked hard to make this day a success. Another huge shout out to Sophie Schneider and our very own Jovan Sahi, the Student Trustees who coordinated the Senate effort. Another gesture of appreciation to Sheridan college who provided their campus for the day.
If you missed your chance this year, don't worry. If you would like to be more involved with the conference next year, make sure to register to attend or join Student Senate to help run the conference. It's a worthwhile experience and definitely one to check out sometime in your 4 years of high school.
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