The youth of today will become the leaders of tomorrow, and in an ever-changing world, tomorrow’s leaders will need a specific set of skills to face the challenges of the future.
For the past 43 years, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has led the way in empowering youth with these skills through the RBC Young Leaders programme.
The Young Leaders programme has touched thousands of students aged 14-17 – among the generation known as Gen Z – engaging them in projects and debates on themes that have included environmental sustainability, bullying and leadership and the effects it could have on communities.
For the past four years, during the covid19 pandemic, the programme was on a hiatus, but this year, it has found new life.
A total of 66 students from 11 schools entered this year’s programme, with Manzanilla Secondary copping the top prize of a $100,000 towards starting and running its proposed project.
Naparima Girls’ High School took second place, winning $50,000, and St Stephen’s College came third, winning $25,000.
But the participants, whether top prize winners or not, gained something more than prize money and bragging rights. They learned skills such as project management, oral presentation and budgeting – all of which, said managing director of RBC Marc Jardine, will help them become not just young leaders, but national leaders with the ability to contribute to their schools, communities and to the country.
Teaching students 'how to fish'
Jardine said this year’s Young Leaders competition focused on developing and pitching proposals, based on this year’s theme – conserve, produce and enhance.
This year, the students were challenged to develop their own sustainable, community-based projects over a 13-week period, then pitch the project to a panel of judges from RBC and the Inter-American Development Bank.
They were provided with chaperones from RBC, who, along with their teachers, guided them through the process of developing the project, writing the proposals and delivering presentations to the judges.
[caption id="attachment_1109433" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Teachers and students of San Juan North Secondary School at the RBC Young Leaders' awards ceremony at Hilton Trinidad, Port of Spain on September 16, - Photo by Gabriel Williams[/caption]
“We had online working sessions on presentation skills, financial literacy, project management, environmental social governance, then the IDB came on with sustainability,” he said. “Those five points gave the kids a really good platform on how to look at these projects, create a project, understand its facets, the costs associated, how to manage the ongoing costs to make it an efficient and sustainable project.”
He added that pitching the project gave students the understanding of how to present and pitch projects to investors, not just in the competition but in a real-world situation of approaching banks for investments.
“The real key to corporate sponsorship is understanding what you want to achieve, how you want to achieve it, how
