Becoming an Influential Leader, Dimitri’s Award Story

Starting the Award

“I began the Award in 2018 towards the end of grade 8 when I became aware of my school’s Duke of Edinburgh’s Award club and was intrigued by the unique structure of the prestigious Award program. Through discussions with my peer mentors who were part of the club’s executive leadership team, I realized that I was already fulfilling most of the Award components through my weekly commitments such as piano studies, sports teams, and local community service. The only remaining Award requirement for the Bronze and Silver levels was the Adventurous Journey, which seemed like an excellent opportunity to develop valuable skills with new people. I immediately registered for the Award through my school’s club. I achieved the position of head of my school’s Duke of Edinburgh’s Award club by grade 11 and made it my goal to help positively shape the high school experiences of my peers through the Award program.

Favorite Part of Passion to Purpose

I attended the Summer 2022 Passion to Purpose (P2P) forum at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus. My favorite part of the event was the opportunity to meet so many fellow Award participants with whom I shared similar goals. Many of the friends I made throughout the week-long forum were working towards completing their Gold Award just like myself and were also interested in using the forum as the residential project for their Gold level. Being surrounded by other young people at similar points in their Award journeys allowed us to identify common interests and passions, which made lasting friendships post-forum come easy. I became great friends with several Award participants of all ages from across North America, with who I have continued to remain in touch even after completing the forum!

Teamwork

I believe that the teamwork aspect of P2P was one of the most central skills developed throughout the forum. Being challenged to work with new people, we had never met before to create a community service project that we were all passionate about was exciting. From the beginning of the forum, when we were in our small teams and tasked to begin brainstorming ideas for a community action project that we would present in a final showcase, this project became the event’s focus. Outside of all forum-wide activities and guest speakers, we were steadily working with our group members on developing our initial idea into a realistic and effective theoretical community service initiative that could be deployed in the real world to solve a specific issue we had identified within our communities. By the end of the week, when all of our groups presented incredible projects, we had all learned the importance of using collaborative skills to generate effective teamwork and had the opportunity to practice being influential leaders in a group setting.

Why I Would Encourage Someone to Apply for Passion to Purpose

I would encourage someone to apply for P2P because of the great opportunity it provides young people seeking to carry out positive change in their communities. Through cultivating the personal skills necessary for planning, coordinating, and executing an effective initiative that can solve a specific issue within a community. From my experience, I know that it can be very intimidating to design a community action project that addresses a problem you are passionate about independently. This is why I found P2P to be an optimal environment for developing such projects with other young people who are equally passionate as me about improving certain aspects of our communities. At P2P, you have the unique opportunity to showcase your strengths to fulfill your vision for the community project you are planning with your group while also developing other strengths based on the distinct skill sets of the other individuals you are collaborating with throughout the forum.”

Dimitri, Passion to Purpose Alumni Summer 2022

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