Yesterday’s Youth Inspire Community Day, organized by Burlington’s Dare To Be Youth (DTBY), featured a community resource fair of local organizations, talks by Chief Stacey LaForme and Olympians Jackie Boyle and Miranda Ayim, three Pythons’ Pit entrepreneur finalist presentations, breakout sessions, special guests beamed in from Kenya, and inspiration aplenty. The event took place Sunday at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre (BPAC).
The day started with the community resource fair for youth aged 14 to 24 to peruse and practice those all-important networking skills; participating organizations included the Centre for Diverse Learners, PFLAG Halton, Halton Industry Education Council and Career Centre (HIEC), BurlingtonGreen, and RBC.
DTBY and Leena Sharma Seth of Mending the Chasm partnered to offer a pilot program for youth to participate in anti-racism affinity spaces. This gave groups of youth the opportunity to connect with each other while learning about structural racism, racial inequity, and how to address bias. Sharma Seth was also one of the Pythons’ Pit judges who assessed the student finalists’ presentations later in the afternoon.
The youth participants were ushered into BPAC’s main theatre next, for music by ArtHouse Kids and by the Wema Centre all the way from Mombasa, Kenya, via internet connection. The Wema Centre supports children who are orphaned or otherwise connected to the street in terms of shelter, food, and education. Pythons’ Pit founder Fareen Samji, who was born in Kenya, has long known of the good work of the Wema Centre, as her family has supported their work her whole life. Samji facilitated the connection with DTBY to broaden the horizons of Youth Inspire Community Day’s Burlington and Halton participants and Wema’s kids as well.
Chief Stacey LaForme, elected Chief of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, poet, and storyteller, inspired the audience with readings of two poems, “Who Am I?” and “A Little Bit of Hope.” He ended his time on stage by linking reconciliation with climate change; his thoughts are that reconciliation should not only be about Indigenous people, but about all marginalized people. “We are allies, and we must remain allies no matter what,” Chief LaForme stated. “Think of Mother Earth as a soul to be saved…and we’ll get there.”
Miranda Ayim then sat down to interview fellow Olympian Jackie Boyle, where they spoke not just about Boyle’s success in track cycling, which she discovered through her stint in RBC Training Ground’s program, but also her tips for staying motivated and cultivating resilience. On the theme of the whole day, “making an impact,” Boyle noted that ultimately, she’d like her own legacy to be as a role model for young people, especially those who might be unsure about their paths.
Then it was on to the Pythons’ Pit finalists. DTBY put the call out earlier this year for students to send their video pitches with their innovative “Big Impact Ideas” to the Pythons. Entries were whittled down to a group of five, who then had mentorship sessions with local entrepreneurs to further develop their ideas. From that group, three finalists were chosen to pitch their ideas to a panel of Pythons in-person at Youth Inspire Community Day.
In front of Sharma Seth, lawyer and entrepreneur Andrew Brown, Joseph Apps, president and head of tech support company Joe Apps, and Jennifer Aubertin, senior portfolio manager and wealth advisor at the Aubertin Group, the finalists were each give only a few minutes to sell their ideas.
First up was Ellis Kim, with Carb Watch, described as “an easy-to-use app for carb counters across all cultures.” This idea was personal to Kim, who dreamed it up after watching her parents struggle to estimate the amount of carbs in the Taiwanese and Korean dishes they tend to make at home in order to correctly dose the insulin needed for her brother, who has Type 1 diabetes. The Pythons appreciated the focus on inclusivity in the health-app space.
Isha Anand spoke next on her Revive Carry-on, a bag insulated with recycled materials for businesses to keep products cold longer when in transit. It started back in grade 8 as a science project to see how well plastics could act as insulators; she then looked into making blankets with recycled plastics. When that proved difficult to scale up, Anand landed on the concept of a bag, which can be made in various sizes, colours, and with branding, according to customer needs. Intended for commercial use, these bags keep things cold for up to 12 hours, which she demonstrated by pulling out a bag of still-frozen ice cubes that she had placed in the bag over 12 hours earlier.
Revive Carry-on has actually been in production for a month now, with family in India doing the initial work, then sending it over to Anand to finish. She has already landed her first deal with a butcher shop, is in talks with the Loblaws Group, and impressed the Pythons with her details on gross margins and supply chain.
Finally, Elena Scurtu pitched her idea for Youth Chefs International, a platform intended to empower youth to learn and display their cooking skills, all while building an online community of cooking enthusiasts. Scurtu herself loves to cook (“I’ve always loved the Food Network!”) but saw a gap: not much was available in terms of support for young cooks. “So I took it into my own hands,” she says, envisioning a platform with live and on-demand cooking lessons, a place where youth can post their original recipes and cooking tips, bringing youth from many cultures together in one virtual space.
Luckily, the Pythons did not have to choose a winner from the three excellent finalists: Samji awarded each finalist with a cheque for $1000.
Finally, participants went into their pre-chosen breakout sessions, on intersectional justice work with Sharma Seth and Kale Black, or on how to make their own lives impactful and the skills needed to do so.
The buzzing atmosphere and smiling faces as the young participants headed to their breakout sessions made it clear that Halton’s youth truly are looking forward to making their own impact — and they’ve already started to figure out how to do it.
Update/correction notice: This article has been updated to reflect the partnership between Dare To Be Youth and Mending the Chasm in the Affinity Spaces pilot program. Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
