Empowering Young Social Innovators

TakingITGlobal has introduced a fresh new program to bring opportunities and resources to empower young people.

The Sprout Ideas Camp is an opportunity for campers ages 8-12 to engage with new technologies and pressing global issues in a live setting for one week. TakingITGlobal lauched this camp by hosting it for two weeks at the Ontario College of Art and Design’s Inclusive Design Institute, with support from Apple, Promethean, and Pearson Foundation.

The camp design drew on TakingITGlobal’s rich diversity of programs, including the Sprout e-Course, as well as in-house knowledge and skills. The camp delivered an innovative program model integrating these themes and focus areas: digital games, social entrepreneurship, project mandates, team building, coding, logo design, 3D printing, prototyping, storyboarding, and presentations and public speaking.  The first week’s campers formed teams which selected as their issues, Homelessness, Mental Health, Animal Cruelty, Cyberbullying, World Hunger, Animal Poaching, and Child Labour. The second week’s teams focused on Aboriginal Children’s Rights, Smoking, Alcohol Abuse, Child Marriage, and Global Warming.

Sprout Ideas Camp participants benefitted from the insights of a variety of expert mentors from industry and academia who shared their time and expertise, including individuals from Apple, Promethean, 500px, Offshoot, OCAD University, Functional Imperative, Bellmedia, Zoku, McMaster University, Humber College, and many more.

Your support makes these great experiences for young people possible, so we want to thank you and invite you to learn more! Please follow this link to explore the prototype games campers developed in Scratch, and check out this video which summarizes one of the week-long camps!

Links:

• Sprout Ideas Camp

We're thrilled to announce the launch of a new section on our website and a new video series!

Our members inspire us, and we’re always trying to come up with ways to inspire them and even given them an edge as they work on their social innovations. We’ve launched a new video section, Conversations on Social Innovation, to exhibit the stories and lessons of our members.This series will bring both young people and guest experts into the conversation so that young social innovators can learn from a range of experiences. Check out the new section and read on in this report as we highlight a series of videos focusing on Sprout alumni.

Alison Burkett is a graduate of the Sprout e-course that guides and supports project development by our members. Alison was inspired to develop her project Write to Remember 1994 and we’re featuring her story in this video. Write to Remember 1994 was founded to help Rwandan genocide survivors document their stories of tragedy, grief, and survival in a safe and supportive environment for healing. Alison is an educator based in Toronto, and she believes that sharing these stories is not only key for the survivors but also for the "outsiders". These stories have the potential to connect new generations of youth from vastly different walks of life "to the human heart,” Alison says, “to the resilience of life and to our collective responsibility in the face of crimes against humanity." Learn more about Alison’s story here.

David Um is a Sprout graduate based in the Philippines who founded a media project Video For Life – an educational tool that aims to help youth learn through the use of video media in the Tagalog language. Daniel’s success story highlights his use of local resources, overcoming unexpected setbacks, and how he stays motivated. He explains that his teams’ skills in organization, research, and creativity were directly linked to the success of his project. Take a moment and watch the story of Daniel Um and his project here.

Thank you for your time in reading this, and thank you for supporting young social innovators!

Links:

• The New Section: Conversations on Social Innovation