WE Day Windsor inspires youth

By Guoliang Fu

More than 1,200 Windsor elementary students celebrated their WE Day event at St. Clair Centre for the Arts last Thursday.

WE Day is an educational event and movement of young people leading local and global change that was started more than twenty years ago by the Kielburger brothers.

This year, thousands of students from the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board attended to focus on identifying ways in which they can become change-makers in their local and global communities.

Windsor Essex Catholic School teacher, Laurie Clement, said the event is also an opportunity to inspire local teenagers to stand up to being a better version of themselves.

“Today we have speakers here empowering them to stand up and be who they believe truly they are,” Clement said. “We have people hopefully to challenge them to think about global cruises, like the water and education.”

Canadian celebrities including speaker Anthony McLean, Paralympic swimmer Danielle Campo McLeod and actor Carson Reaume shared their stories on the stage about personal empowerment that led to taking action and giving back to various charities.

About 1,200 students have come to the St. Clair College Centre For The Arts for WE Day Windsor.

It's a "pep rally" meant to inspire students to become "changemakers" in their community.@CBCWindsor pic.twitter.com/qsvbYmVX2t

— Sanjay Maru (@sanJmaru) March 28, 2019

“One of the nice things is some of the students were actually on stage today were in our audience as participants in the last six years,” Clement continued. “It’s one of those things that inspire people to go out and make a difference and we can have an opportunity to celebrate them on our WE Day stage.”