Dare To Dream

Last Friday I was given the opportunity to give an outreach speech to a community in Dunnville, Ontario that are part of the Dream program. Dream (designing routes to education and mentorship) is a mentoring organization that focuses on bettering the community through youth by providing them with academic, social, and financial support for secondary education. I was really excited to visit this community because it reminded me a lot of FAM for Change. At FAM, we focus on empowering youth from Brockton High School to make a difference in their own lives, make a difference in their community, and make a difference in the world. We do this by helping them with their school work, participating in campaigns like Halloween for Hunger, and teaching them about various worldly issues. At Dream, they also do these things through global literacy programs and events completely run by the youth.

This speech was a great opportunity for me in different ways. First, I was able to see an existing mentoring organization right here in Ontario, and one similar to FAM. It made me so happy (much like “Strip the Streets” did) to be able to see young people mentoring each other and putting on their own events. Secondly, I was able to speak to my own experiences with mentoring and virtually (via pictures) introduce the community of Dunnville to my mentor, Jonathan, and my mentees, Nichole and Angel. It gave me a great sense of pride to be able to express how important mentorship is and to see the pride in the kids’ faces when I asked, “who here has mentored someone?”

Every day this job presents new challenges. Every day this job presents new goals. Every day presents new dreams. And every day this job presents new feelings of accomplishment... Friday was one of those days.

Cheers!
Bria