WE

Be patient, this story spans 13 years, I’ll be as brief as I can.

If you had the privilege of knowing me in the sixth grade, you will know that I was a very awkward young person. I brushed out my curly blond hair ensuring that it quadrupled the size of my head. I wasn’t very good at making friends my own age. The idea of speaking in front of my class would have paralyzed me. 

One day, a very close family friend mentioned that his friend had a daughter at my school who was doing a fundraiser for a charity that he was involved with. Sophia was in grade 11 or 12 (Senior School) when I was still in Junior School which automatically made her one of the coolest people ever to speak to me. She and a team of her classmates were organizing a bake sale fundraiser for Free the Children. 

After a few introductions and a rundown of what Free the Children’s mission is, I became the “ambassador” for the Junior School’s engagement. I spent the next few months meeting with the team and establishing my role in it. To my horror, it quickly became clear that I was going to need to speak…not to my class…to the entire school. Thankfully, I had an amazing group of young women there to empower, encourage, and inspire me; to instill not only a belief in my own ability but a belief that this organization was worth it. This organization was worth risking humiliation in front of everyone. If you were a young person with any measurable amount of anxiety, I’m sure you understand how strong that belief had to be for me to get up there.

My ticket from the third We Day

Fast forward a year, I was going to the second-ever We Day. I remember approaching the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto, being overwhelmed by the lines of students wrapping around the building, waiting for their school’s turn to be seated. The deafening noise that reverberated off the walls as Craig and Marc Kielburger came out to greet everyone and explain that this was a room of shameless idealists who were not afraid to make waves to see a change in their community both locally and globally was so profound. That was a room of young people who were inspired. They were inspired by a 12-year-old boy, who had seen something wrong in the world and did something about it. They were inspired by the speakers like Michel Chikwanine and Spencer West who had overcome immense challenges, taken risks, beaten the odds, and came to this stadium bearing their truths for us. Of course, I was already taken by Free the Children but that room filled with hundreds of young people like me, who were ignited by this goal to change the world together, that is what captured my heart forever. It is also the reason I never missed a Toronto We Day throughout middle and high school, tacking on an extra few in Waterloo, Vancouver, and London but I’m getting ahead of myself.

After having been so inspired by everyone I had met through Free the Children and We Day, I was devastated to find out that I was too young to go on a Me to We trip to Kenya. Being impatient, and unwilling to sit and wait for another year till I could go, I decided to go to Me to We’s Take Action Academy, a youth training program designed for young people who want to make a difference but do not yet know how or want to hone their passion. There I had the chance to practice public speaking, reflect on issues that were close to my heart, and begin planning what I wanted to do about it, in true “shameless idealist” fashion. It was an incredible learning opportunity but as with We Day, it wasn’t just the program that was amazing; it was the young people. The camp counselors who were so passionate, fellow campers who were sorting through all these challenges with me, each person had a story to tell about how they ended up there. I was finally getting to know young people with similar interests and passions to me who also felt like the odd one out in their school circles. We cried about bullying, mental health struggles, and global injustices together. Those connections were part of the foundation that would help me understand who I am and who I want to be in this world.

Jumping forward another year, I was 14 and picking out my hiking pack to live out of for a month and a half in Kenya, jittery with anticipation of the youth trip I was about to embark on. My parents, obviously crazy for sending their child to Africa, had gone on their own journey with Free the Children and Me to We in this time and, after a quick word with Craig to get his assurance that I would be okay, dropped me off at Pearson International Airport. Thus began the most important trip of my life. I flew with the facilitators and a couple other Torontonian participants to Montreal, where we all met up. A group of 24 youth and 2 leaders who had never met and now solely depended on each other. Over the course of the next 3 weeks, we became family. As the youngest, I had the privilege of being everyone’s “little sister”. I could, and did say, “Hey, I’m really awkward and uncomfortable finding someone to sit with on the bus, would you sit with me?” and nobody batted an eye. It was okay to just be me. We told our stories, played “games” that shrewdly pointed out systems of inequality, cried a lot, and learned about the 5 pillars for a We community (Education, Water, Health, Food, Opportunity) all while building a library. Having said that, we all agreed that however much good we thought we would do by working on that building, the time the community spent with us, playing soccer with the students, chatting with the mamas, did SO much more good for us than we could ever hope to. 

One day, when talking to a group of students they gave me a name in Maasai. Nashipai. Happiness.

The next few years were rough. I started high school, started self-harming, was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, etc. but I never forgot my new name. It always stuck with me that people who didn’t speak my language didn’t know who I was or where I was from, saw happiness in me. I cherished that knowledge in the darkest of times. 

In grade 12, I had the absolute pleasure of going on not one, but two We trips. After Take Action Academy, Kenya and 7 We Days, I was ready to take on more of a leadership position so when my school told me that there was a grade 9 trip going to Arizona/Mexico, I quickly established a “student leader” position for myself. Having the chance to share all I knew with this group of 6 ninth graders was very cool, but the one experience stood out from that trip. We were making and serving lunch at a shelter in Mexico and learning about border issues by chatting with the people we served. I got talking to a 16-year-old boy (remember, he was my age), about how he was hiding in the mountains trying to return to his family in the US. He had been deported but his mother was a legal immigrant and his sisters were born there. This boy gave me a whole new perspective on issues that fall much closer to home than Kenya. 

By this point in my journey, I had heard so many people’s stories both through Free the Children, Me to We, and in my personal life. They had shared openly with me about their struggles and lessons they learned the hard way. I saw the way the Air Canada Centre erupted with applause when Molly Burke told her story with her guide dog, Gypsy. I had a chance to share my own story in one-on-one conversations with peers and the grade 9s in Mexico and saw some comfort taken from it. One day, a classmate that I had a frenemy relationship with and I were talking and found out we were on the same anti-depressants and saw the same therapist. The overwhelming sense of comfort and almost joy I found in realizing that I was not alone, convinced me that I needed to start talking. Start sharing like I had seen so many others so throughout my life. Pardon the pun but I wanted to take my story from me to we.

I started a blog about my experience with mental health and illness. Soon, I had contributors who wanted their stories shared as well. People from across the globe were reaching out to me to talk about their story and how healing it was just to know that you are not alone. This blog is not perky, or sugarcoated, it is the brutally honest experience I lived and told because hundreds of people took the time to inspire me; nearly all of which was made possible because one 12-year-old boy, read a story about another boy who fought for and shared his truth. 

Later that year, my family and I went to India on another We trip. There were many beautiful and some heart-wrenching memories in India but the greatest thing I took from that experience was a role model. I had met Kim back in Kenya but now, as a struggling teenager, I was searching for a young woman I could relate to and look up to on a more personal level. Kim facilitated our trip, helped keep us safe, accommodated my father’s game changes, and most importantly, gave us the opportunity to get to know her. I will always aspire to be as driven, passionate, and honest has her.

Eventually, I got the N in Nashipai tattooed on my arm over the first place I self-harmed. In 2015 for Bell Lets Talk Day, Nelly Furtado tweeted my blog. I still catch up with people I was in Kenya with. Craig, Marc, and Roxanne are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. 

To wrap up this story, it has been my absolute pleasure to watch WE develop from hundreds of students to thousands, spanning the globe, and having anyone with style wearing Me to We artisan styles (my personal favorite is the Rafiki bracelets). It has been a privilege to have been inspired, empowered, and shaped by this organization I believed in so deeply in grade 6. The amazing life I live would never have been possible without them and I will forever be grateful.