In February, Equitas held three training sessions on its Speaking Rights program and more than 40 youth workers from twenty community organizations in Montreal participated.
The participants, who were not familiar with Speaking Rights, were very enthusiastic and looking forward to implementing it. Harriet, head of youth programming in the West Island of Montreal, wrote to us the day after the training: 
Thank you so much for the excellent training! I’ve already planned five concrete steps to integrate the activities into my programs. I’m super excited because we’ve been wanting to integrate human rights awareness into our youth programming for a while. The comments we received following the training show that this program is having a real impact on the lives of young people. Marc-André, a youth worker from Hochelaga-Maisonneuve explains that some activities have helped to empower the youth of the community: With my young dropouts, the Step Forward activity has had an impact. It made them realize that in life, they are often the ones who are not progressing. It made them reflect on the importance of school and study because they realized that if you want a chance to move forward, you need to study. They saw that there is a link between effort and your path in life that makes you advance in life or you stay back. Speaking Rights is being implemented by over 50 community organizations in Montreal. Needs assessments and pilot projects are also planned for Vancouver and Winnipeg in the coming months. For more information: Julie Kon Kam King Senior Program Officer, Equitas jkamkonking@equitas.org 514 954 0382 x 233