‘Taking action’: Quebec teen summit brings together students ready to work for change

The Lester B. Pearson School Board held its first teen summit at its headquarters in Dorval, Que., on Wednesday.

Student representatives from across the board’s 11 high schools came together to brainstorm ideas for projects they can enact in their schools and communities.

“They can work in different groups, not just with students from their own schools but really mix and mingle and then go back to their schools with a project they have created here today that will make a difference in their own school,” said Debbie Dixon, regional director for the board’s region 3.

“What the Central Students Committee aims to do, is to get people to act,” said student Emma Pitts, also the committee’s vice chair.

It was still early in the day when Global News met up with the students. Pitts group was still in the early stages of brainstorming.

“So a girl in my group loves art, another one likes leadership and works with children,” she explained. “We’re thinking how can we incorporate these ideas together to benefit everyone — and that’s where we will conglomerate and work based on our interests.”

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What students decide to focus on can vary widely from one group to the next.

“(It can be) to make sure, for example, that all the rooms in the school are accessible to students … with disabilities,” Dixon said, “or to make sure that all students are represented in every area regardless of their race, of their colour, of their gender, of their ability.”

Student Kayleigh Parée added that the theme of this year’s summit is Taking Action.

“So it’s really about what you want to see done and how you want it to be done,” she said. “My own group, we’re doing a fundraiser for menstrual products.”

She explained that currently, only two schools in the LBPSB provide menstrual products and that needs to change.

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“It’s a basic necessity for women,” she said. “We want it to be school-board wide, where all the schools can get feminine hygiene products and they don’t have to come out of the leadership budget they can come from the school board.”

With more than 100 students taking part in Wednesday’s summit and learning how to enact positive change, the future looks that much brighter.