Four Brooks Secondary students were among 800 attendees from 30 countries at the Rotary International Peace and Environment Sustainability Conference in Vancouver on February 10.
Local participants Ellayne Wikene, Annika Krowitz, Katie Trevisanutto and Olivia Blackburn-Hopkins were accompanied at the event by Rotary Club of Powell River Sunrise president Frank Clayton.
The students belong to Brooks Interact, Rotary’s service club for young people that aims at developing leadership skills, building international understanding and acts of service.
The conference was one of six held around the world. Local attendees said the event inspired them and helped them understand how youth can have a major impact on a world scale.
“We learned how we can better our community and ourselves,” said Blackburn-Hopkins, “and how we can get involved internationally.”
Participants listened to speakers and took part in seminars and workshops on topics ranging from sustainable agricultural and business practices to international development.
“It was life-changing to attend it,” said Krowitz. “We went to a session about clean water, which is so important because we live on the coast.”
The students said witnessing initiatives others their age have implemented around the world has fuelled the group’s ambition to start projects locally. A student from California provided an especially inspiring example of what they could achieve at Brooks.
“We met and befriended a guy from California,” said Trevisanutto. “He’s our age and talked about the changes he’s made in his school promoting composting and reusable water bottles. He proved that youth can make a change in the community and their school, and it only takes one person.”
The students said they hope to start work on a similar composting project at Brooks in the coming months.
Another highlight was a keynote address from scientist David Suzuki.
“It was absolutely phenomenal meeting Suzuki,” said Wikene. “Everything he said was really relatable. He’s quite old, but he can relate with teens and bring us all in and together.”
The students agreed that Suzuki’s speech left them feeling encouraged that change is something they can create locally and in their work with Interact going forward.
“Suzuki said the future doesn’t exist,” said Krowitz. “It’s merely an idea in our brains that we can change.”
