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Ministry of Citizenship
and Immigration
400 University Avenue
Toronto ON M7A 2R9
Ministère des Affaires civiques
et de l’Immigration
400, avenue University
Toronto ON M7A 2R9
February 14, 2013
MEMORANDUM TO: Ontario Student Success Leaders
FROM: Brian Beattie
Director
Citizenship Branch
Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration
Rob Andrews
Director
Student Success/Learning to 18 Strategic Implementation,
Innovation and Support Branch
DATE: February 14, 2013
SUBJECT: 2013 ChangeTheWorld Youth Volunteer Challenge
______________________________________________________________________
From April 21 to May 20, the sixth annual ChangeTheWorld Ontario Youth Volunteer
Challenge is taking place in hundreds of communities across Ontario. This four-week
campaign champions volunteering among Ontario’s high school students.
ChangeTheWorld is delivered through a partnership between the Ministry of Citizenship
and Immigration (MCI) and the Ontario Volunteer Centre Network (OVCN). Since 2008,
more than 63,000 young people have volunteered over 265,000 hours through this
program.
The Ministry of Education has supported ChangeTheWorld through its Student Voice
initiative since 2010. Student Voice works to engage youth in their schools and
community SpeakUp projects are an important part of this effort. Students can apply for
SpeakUp project grants to create student-led volunteer projects during the
ChangeTheWorld campaign.
ChangeTheWorld challenges high school students aged 14 to 18 to volunteer three
hours over four weeks. Participation in this campaign is open to all secondary school
students and contributes to the 40-community involvement hours required to obtain an
Ontario high school diploma.

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Last year, more than 28,000 youth volunteered a record 124,000 hours in more than 300
communities, working with their schools, local volunteer centres and community
agencies. This year, 23 volunteer centres representing communities across Ontario are
helping to organize volunteer opportunities and connect students to them.
Given the solid partnership between ChangeTheWorld and Student Voice, we look
forward to a very successful year. This year there are 220 SpeakUp projects taking place
as part of ChangeTheWorld.
If your school is interested in participating in volunteer events during ChangeTheWorld,
visit ontario.ca/changetheworld. We would be delighted if you could share this
information with your school principals to make them aware of the many events taking
place in schools and communities through these programs.
Sincerely,
Brian Beattie Rob Andrews