From meeting with their MPs to advocate for girls’ education in the Global South, to creating podcasts to raise awareness about the issue, participants at Canadian Jesuit International’s (CJI) Youth for Others Advocacy Symposium shared ideas for action at the end of the gathering. The symposium, now in its third year, was held April 21-23 at Saint Paul University, Ottawa.

About 60 students, chaplains and educators from Catholic schools in Winnipeg, Regina, Montreal, Hamilton, Whitby, Toronto, and Ottawa, attended the symposium, which CJI organizes every two years. The symposium seeks to introduce students to responsible citizenship and how to effect change through advocacy, interaction with politicians, and visits to the offices of Members of Parliament.

This year’s symposium focused on why girls’ education in the Global South is important to us all, and featured South African girls’ education activist Noluthando Honono, who has been involved in girls’ education and ecology initiatives of the Justice and Ecology Network-Africa. Dr Evelyn Mayanja, Assistant Professor at Carleton University, discussed the intersection of girls’ education and resource extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Lerona Lewis, Professor at the University of Ottawa, discussed girls’ education in the Canadian context, and the need to improve the learning outcomes and experiences of racialized students in the Canadian education system.

Read more stories from the 2024 Y4O Symposium here.