High school students across Chatham-Kent are being invited to come together to share their ideas to help improve the local community.
Later this month, Prosperity Roundtable is hosting its Ignite Conference. The two-evening conference is exclusively for people in high school in Chatham-Kent and according to officials with the organization, will help inspire those who attend to develop outside-the-box ideas that they want to see implemented locally.
"It's time that young people have an opportunity to lead, and have their ideas invested in if we are going to see real progress in Chatham-Kent," said Engagement Lead for Prosperity Roundtable Katie Goulet. "The entire goal of this conference is to start this growing community of young people who are celebrated for their out-of-the-box ideas and their ambitions to bring these ideas to life."
Goulet said some ideas youth can bring to the table include bringing activities, events or groups to the community.
"This is a great time to get together and flush out those ideas, make them come to life," she explained. "If they want to see something physical, like creating a space, they can do that too. If they want another community garden, enhance a garden, or create a mural to get people out in the community. Additionally, if they want to advocate for something...this would be a really great opportunity to find other like-minded people that want to see those changes happen too."
This is the first year the organization has hosted the conference.
According to Goulet, Prosperity Roundtable has $35,000 worth of funding to invest in the ideas. The funding was received from the Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement.
"We were identified as one of 13 communities across Canada with some of the lowest employment and graduation rates among youth 14-29," she said. "Our idea is if we can empower the young people in our community to make those decisions and identify what the problems are, they'll naturally able to find ways to solve those problems and find the motivation."
The Ignite conference will act as a kick-off to the creation of the Ignite community, where young people from across Chatham-Kent can attend workshops, receive mentorship, and access funding to bring their out-of-the-box ideas to life.
The theme of the conference is "connect, change and inspire." Attendees will get to know each other, share their ideas about what they want to see for others in the community, work with other people at the conference to develop project ideas and identify the highest priority projects that should be implemented locally.
The Ignite Conference takes place on September 20 and 21 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. each night at the Portuguese Canadian Social Club in Chatham.
There are 50 spaces available and registration can be found by clicking here.
