We Day: Be the change

Give the Canadian penny that appeared in 1853, a powerful farewell before it goes out of circulation. Students and schools were given penny bags on We Day to collect $25 in pennies, which will provide a permanent source of clean water to one person in developing countries. From November 1st to December 21st, then again in Spring 2013 RBC branches across Canada will collect these penny filled bags making it easy for us to collect the pennies without counting or rolling.  All we have to do is fill up the bags and drop it off at any RBC branch.

Free the Children is an international organization started by Marc and Craig Kielburger. This organization empowers youth to remove barriers that prevent them from begin active local and global citizens. This program educates, engages and empowers youth in North America and UK. 
   

We Day brings big issues to the forefront and changes the value system of everyone, especially the youth as they become leaders. There are over 1.7 million young people from 45 countries involved in this initiative to make a positive change at home and abroad. In the 2011/2012 school year youth raised $6 million for local and global causes.  They invested more than 1.7 million hours of time volunteering. 

I support this type of active awareness and education, and believe it is important for our children to be involved in these positive changes. I attended the We Day event at the Air Canada Centre, Toronto and was able to meet celebrities and activists such as Martin Sheen, Nelly Furtado and Jacob from Hedley. We listened and saw speakers and performers such as Molly Burke, Romeo A. Dallaire, Robin Wiszowaty, Shawn Desman, Spencer West, The Tenors, Tyler Shaw, Al Gore, Jake Zeldin, Jennifer Hudson, Jesse Giddings, Justice Murray Sinclair and Justin Trudeau.

We Day will be held in 8 Canadian cities this school year; Toronto (Sep 28), Vancouver (Oct 18), Alberta (Oct 24), Manitoba (Oct 30), Waterloo Region (Nov 14), Montreal (Nov 20) and National We day in Ottawa (Apr 29).  

The generous sponsors RBC and TELUS make We Day completely free for students and educators.  TELUS has a Phones for Good campaign where they will give $25 (up to $650,000) from the sale of every TELUS Samsung Galaxy SIII and Samsung Ace Q to Free the Children.

They also have an Earn your way to We Day campaign. TELUS gives $1 (up to $100,000) to Free the Children for every submission from the youth across Canada when they tell what they are doing to make a difference in their community.

Youth between 13 and 17 can submit their video on how they would partner with a local charity to make a positive change in their community and win $20,000 to put their idea into action.

MuchMusic will air highlights on November 11th at 7pm EST and CTV will air on November 24th at 7pm EST.  

The international projects such as "Adopt a village" done by Free the Children is a holistic, sustainable model that helps children and their families from the cycle of poverty.  To make an investment in these communities, this project helps develop five of these important parts of the infrastructure.  

1. Education: They make a valuable social investment by concentrating on providing traditional curriculum, healthy homes and business skills.  
2. Clean water and sanitation by providing localized clean water sources and facilities to reduce waterborne diseases.  This source helps the young children that trek to collect water for their families to attend school.
3. Health: providing medical supplies for health clinics and workshops so the community can treat illness quickly. They provide community gardens and tree planting.  Sports equipment to encourage physical fitness.
4. Alternative income and livelihood by skill training, financial business training and microcredit loans to help families start small business.
5. Agriculture and food security provides nutrition programs that give children nutritious food, crop diversification, agricultural training, irrigation and watershed development.  

When there is rapid growth in technology it is sad to see that some parts of the world there are people without the essential of life: WATER.  Things we can do to help.

• Get a penny bag from Free the Children or RBC branch and start collecting.
• Visit the online water initiative and donate.
• Purchase a $10 Me to We Artisan handmade unique Rafiki made by Maasai moms in Kenya, which will provide one person access to clean water for a year.

Help Canada use the penny for a good cause that will change the lives of so many people and communities.  The penny is used to make wishes come true, so lets make the wishes of 100,000 people come true.

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