DreamNow's Blog

Competition: Social Innovator Hot Desk Contest

Center for Social Innovation

Deadline: October 15th, 2010

The Deal: You have a couple of weeks to enter your name, answer a few questions, and to either nominate yourself or another social innovator. Candidates are youth aged 19-29, Torontonians improving the city, or people who aid multiple sectors (e.g. education + health). The prizes for each category include a Hot Desk at the Center for Social Innovation (val. @ $3000) and more!

+DreamNow: The Center for Social Innovation is great. They have been partners and friends for several years now and have grown to become one of the central hubs for doing good in Toronto and Ontario. They host the ENP program which gave us funding when were evaluating our Continuum program among other things. Check them out. 

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Toronto Star: ‘Super candidates’ cash in on huge scholarships

 
 DreamNow was mentioned in this past Sunday's edition of the Toronto Star. The article included a link to our ebook that we produced a few years ago on how to win a scholarship for university. The E-Book was written by DreamNow and presented in partnership with Pearson College. 

It is free and as the article mentions--- it can help you out. 

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‘Super candidates’ cash in on huge scholarships

By Jasmeet Sidhu 

They are known as “super candidates,” high school prodigies who scoop up hundreds of thousands of dollars in university scholarships.   (...)

“I think what makes a strong candidate in the race for scholarships will be genuine passion for what they’re doing. If passion is strategy, it isn’t a bad thing.”

Dev Aujla, a one-time super candidate himself, doesn’t see anything wrong with students strategizing to become competitive for these large full-funding scholarships, especially if it leads to community projects that have a positive impact.

He has authored the e-book titled Scholarship Training: A Definitive Guide to Winning Scholarships, and says he has coached several students to win over $250,000 in total scholarship money.

“At the end of the day, you have to do a lot of work to win a scholarship. You have to be doing it for the right reasons,” he says.

Read the full article here

Event: Roots + Shoots Day of Peace

Jane Goodall Institute 

Event Date: September 19th  

The Deal: Jane Goodall and the Roots + Shoots program is behind this event which is a Toronto-based peace rally and march that features Michel Chikwanine a former child soldier from the Congo giving an inspirational address. 

+DreamNow: DreamNow worked with the Jane Goodall Institute in 2008 in order to help strategize around follow up for their youth-focussed conferences. 

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Organizing Your Privilege

The latest post from our Executive Director's blog on the Huffington Post on organizing your friends to do good. It features Kyle Thiermann, pictured above, and the organization Resource Generation. 

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Close to three years ago, I stumbled into the organizing world for what was originally supposed to be a getaway in West Virginia for a conference called 'Leveraging Privilege for Social Change'. I was expecting a week away from email, time commitments and speakers. What I left with was a whole new outlook on what privilege meant and an understanding of the importance of peer-organizing.

I realized that 'leveraging privilege for social change' is much more broadly applicable and reaches beyond the typical domains of wealth and class that often come to mind. We all have communities of which we are a part and we all have privileges that only we have permission to speak about. Our privilege may lie in our relationships, our time, our energy or it may be our skills, abilities or resources, regardless we often need a little help to put them to use. We need a peer network to support us, to help us realize that not only do we have something to give, but that it is possible to make a difference.

I recently met with Kyle Thiermann who embodies just this. Kyle is a professional surfer from Santa Cruz and he decided to mobilize his community -- disengaged surfers. After a trip to Chile, Kyle learned that a proposed coal power plant, funded by the Bank of America, was going to ruin the surf breaks and local culture. He began to mobilize his community, to shoot videos and to advocate in telling people to move their money from the Bank of America to local banks. With his enthusiasm, the campaign grew; this was Kyle's community, this was his privilege. As a direct result of his organizing, he has been able to document that over $110 million dollars of lending power that has been moved from the bank. This is the power of organizing. (....)

 

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Competition: National Peace Essay Contest

United States Institute of Peace

Deadline: February 1st 2011

The Deal:  An essay contest on peace for high school students interested in international issues. The topic this year is 'Governance, Corruption and Conflict.' If you win it is a $10,000 dollar prize. There is a lot to write about. 

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