BYTE seeks the public’s votes to keep running annual youth conference

After three years of running the Leaders In Training (LIT) Conference for youth in rural Yukon communities, BYTE has exhausted funding sources available in the Yukon, and is asking the public to help support the program by voting for LIT on the Inspired Minds Learning Project page.

The Inspired Minds Learning Project collects big ideas from different organizations across Canada and awards 15 winners with prizes from a pool of $250 000 to turn these ideas into realities. To win, organizations have to pitch their idea and have it survive through two rounds of voting for it to be considered for the grand prize, which is $50 000.

The LIT Conference, now renamed the Young Northern Leaders Program, is an empowering three-day leadership workshop that invites youth from rural Yukon communities to gather in Whitehorse, get to know each other, and build confidence and leadership skills together. Past LIT Conferences have had themes like Healthy Minds or Violence Prevention. We’ve seen youth return year after year to build their leadership skills to bring back to their community.

For BYTE, the grand prize would be enough to run the LIT Conference for another two years; however, any prize level would have a huge impact on our ability to run the program. But to make it past the first round of voting, we need 250 votes.

This year’s LIT conference, which took place in early March, saw youth from ten different Yukon communities represented. There was an overwhelming level of interest from the communities to participate in this year’s conference, a testament to the conference’s growing reputation. Some communities sought out additional funding independently in order to enable more youth to attend the conference.

After three days of programming, BYTE facilitators notice huge changes in the youth participants as they develop confidence and start stepping into leadership roles. Some of the youth participants from this year told us that the most valuable thing they learned were “leaders are in everyone,” “friendship,” and “my leadership skills.”

The BYTE staff is busy voting every day to help make this project happen again, but four votes a day can only go so far! BYTE needs 250 votes to make it to the second round; at the moment, we have 50. We’re calling on the public to vote and help support the continuation of this project.

To vote, visit http://learningproject.cst.org/ideas/487 and register through social media or with an email address. You can vote every day until May 18, 2015.