Impacting students

Riverwood Academy students received an absolute motivational experience last week.

Absolute Leadership Development is a non-profit organization that has been partnering with schools for the past five years to help their students realize their incredible value and potential and be empowered to change their world.

The Absolute program has been deemed Canada's leading school presentation that inspires students with a relevant message that their lives have purpose and value.

Tina Hoard was one of the team leaders that visited the Gander Bay school. She explained the program being put off for the Grades 6-12 students at Riverwood Academy.

"We are doing what we call an Absolute Motivational Assembly - it is a hour long presentation and we have a live band, multimedia (presentation) and we have young motivational speakers and we jam-pack that into an hour," explained Ms. Hoard. "We talk about different issues such as drug abuse, bullying, social justice, depression, those types of things - issues that we find relevant to high school students.

Josh Gillingham, a Grade 12 student at Riverwood Academy said he was impressed by the presentation by Absolute at his school.

"It makes people realize what's going on in the world - makes people realize what's going on around them," said Josh.

Josh said that a lot of the issues put forth in the presentation are issues he has seen in the area.

"It is not too bad in our school where there is a small group of students, but it is still happening," he said.

Josh said having the chance to see a presentation like this at Riverwood Academy was a good opportunity for students at his school.

"It's good to see people notice that things like this happen around here too, it's not only happening in big places, it happens in smaller places like this too," he said. "It's nice that people realize this."

Ms. Hoard said Riverwood Academy is one stop along their East Coast Tour. The group, over the year, travels to schools all across Canada

Having made their presentation to both larger and smaller schools, Ms. Hoard said they are finding that the issues experienced at all schools are the same with bullying being the most common issue they come across with substance abuse and depression also ranking up there.

Last October the group did a break-out session at the Provincial Student Leadership Conference in Placentia and that is where Riverwood Academy principal Paula Sweetapple first saw the group. She knew then that this was a presentation she wanted her students to see first hand.

"I thought they were really good and they had a great message," said Ms. Sweetapple. "When I had an e-mail come (saying they were touring the province) I said we will bring them to the school and get the message out to the students in this area."

Ms. Sweetapple said she wanted her students to realize that they do have a choice and she said she was pleased at how they responded to the presentation.

"They enjoyed it and they seemed to get involved and fit in with the crowd," she said. "The students that got up and danced, that was really good as well."

In fact Ms Sweetapple was so impressed by the message Absolute put forth that she said they would definitely consider having the group come back to the school again. She also encourages other principals to consider booking the group to visit their schools.

"Their message is clear and our students need to get that message," said the principal.