A lifelong lover of animals, Johanne Boudreault was devastated when she saw the destruction of Australian wildlife’s habitat by fast-moving wildfires overrunning the country. A kindergarten teacher at Montreal’s Gardenview Elementary School, she had no question about where to turn for help with contributing to global relief efforts.

Enter the Social Change Leadership Group (SCLG).

A group of young change-makers, headed by science and technology teacher Valerie Honig, the SCLG is known around Gardenview for rallying the student body around social causes, ranging from food insecurity to mental health.

“It doesn’t matter what age you are, you have the ability to make positive change,” says Honig in praise of the 28 fifth and sixth graders that make up the group. “To sway people in a positive direction, it doesn’t matter if you’re 10. If you have knowledge and understanding, you can share that—there’s power in that.”

At the foundation of the SCLG is WE Schools and its service-learning curriculum. Through the program, Honig is able to help students understand the story behind local and global issues like climate change or water scarcity. From here, the curriculum shows youth how they can positively impact these issues using action planning, whether that’s through an awareness campaign, a fundraiser or the simple act of volunteering.

The group had already picked their action campaigns for the year, including a canned food drive in support of the WE Schools food-insecurity initiative, called WE Scare Hunger, which they completed last fall, and a bake sale planned for this March to raise money for WE Villages, when tragedy struck Australia. While outside the realm of service-learning campaigns offered by WE Schools, the students’ willingness to take action points to the entire purpose of the service-learning program: to instill empathy in young people.

The decision to host a dress-down day was made and, with less than two weeks to prepare for the fundraiser, a race against the clock began. The leadership group placed posters in every corner of the school and visited each classroom to raise awareness for the cause. By the end, between the school’s 800 students, the group had raised $10,000 from a $2-a-pop dress-down day. Honig remains astounded and touched by the fundraiser’s success.

“I’ve never seen a community stand behind their kids so much. The parents at Gardenview, they want to support their kids in thinking about people other than themselves. They know that empathy is an important value to have, whether it’s for a human or for a koala,” gushes Honig. “Worldview is something that we need in society.”

That broadened perspective is deeply rooted within the WE Schools program. Dedicated to nurturing a generation of compassionate change-makers, each campaign and initiative is designed to introduce youth to the issues that affect our world, without leaving them feeling overwhelmed and helpless. “Through WE, kids really learn how to use their voice,” says Honig. “That’s the most important part. They’re getting educated on social issues, and they’re learning how to be empowered.”

Youth engagement has long been a passion of Honig’s. Originally studying child psychology and environmental science during her post-secondary education, she had an epiphany while learning about the issues affecting our world: to change the future, you have to empower youth. “I thought, ‘We have to put these issues in our curriculum so that the awareness starts earlier in our society,” she recalls. “You have to change the behaviors of youth so that they become adults with different behaviors.” And so Honig found her calling as a teacher.

While the issues are always changing, both at home in Montreal and out in the world, the students in Gardenview’s Social Change Leadership group know they always have a voice and the ability to take action—the power to change the world. Says the educator of this and other lessons passed on through the WE Schools program, “Those are lifelong skills.”