I don’t know that I’ll ever find another workplace quite like WE. As a part of the WE team, I was surrounded by passionate and driven peers who cared deeply about having a positive impact on young people across Canada. During my five years with the organization, the WE movement caught on and our projects rapidly expanded to new markets across North America and in the UK. It was challenging, fast-paced work, and it was rewarding to witness the impacts that our WE Schools program was having on students and educators from all different walks of life.

When I was a member of WE’s Educational Programming Team, I received a letter from the parent of a young girl who participated in the WE Schools program. She shared with me how her daughter, Caitlin, had once been ashamed of an illness that she lived with, so much so that she refused to tell her friends why she was hospitalized and missing so much school. Caitlin joined WE Schools at one of the schools that I supported as a WE Program Manager, and as she began to take action on various social issues her confidence grew. With the support of her WE Schools group, her best friend, Daniel, and an incredible educator, Caitlin shared her experience of living with epilepsy. Together, the group decided to form the Epilepsy Awareness Squad and began to share resources for other teens who experienced the same stigma. This shy young girl who was scared to talk about her illness with her friends went on to become a spokesperson for Epilepsy Canada and to speak on-stage in front of thousands of people at WE Day Vancouver. During my time at WE, I had the pleasure of supporting many young people like Caitlin by providing them with tools, resources, and campaigns to realize their potential as change-makers. Young people who had big dreams of a better world, stepped out of their comfort zone and acted to create change in their communities. It was humbling and inspiring to play a small role in supporting their actions