YOUTH CHANGEMAKER RETREATS

TAKE AN UNFORGETTABLE JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY AND GROWTH

Take part in a tailored retreat at one of our beautiful campuses, immersed in nature, surrounded by like-minded peers and lead by inspiring mentors and teachers.

Our leadership retreats are part of our emerging leaders curriculum.  They are designed to work with youth and help cultivate their inner leadership qualities while at the same time give them a powerful, life changing, inspiring, fun, healthy experience in nature.

Leadership retreats take place in Ontario, Canada at our Riverstone Campus and in Perth-Andover, New Brunswick at our Pathsaala Campus.

We can deliver retreats for as young as 11 years old to up to 30 years old.

In retreats we work organization to organization.  In other words organizations and community groups bring their youth participants to us along with their own youth supervisors.  Types of groups that come to us on a regular basis are Indigenous youth groups, Non-profit organizations serving Inner City Youth, Student Council Groups, University and College Groups, and more.

Each retreat is custom built to match the needs and educational outcomes requested of the partner group.

Our retreats are non-profit and there to serve the non-profit youth community.  We only charge cost recovery at most, and often will fundraise alongside your group to bring your youth here.  Many of the organizations we serve return annually, we fundraise together throughout the year or have resources provided by grants, such that the organization can bring groups annually to the site.

Engage in skill building workshops, cultural experiences and leadership development, not to mention, a whole lot of fun activities.  At the heart of each program is empowering youth to find their voices, articulate their needs and contribute to their communities.

OUR DYNAMIC AND CAREFULLY CURATED RETREAT PROGRAMS ARE FULL OF UNIQUE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES!

Here are the types of activities you can expect:

  • Learn new skills and discover new passions
  • Develop and share your unique voice in art, digital media, and more
  • Tour the universe in our state of the art telescope observatory
  • Work alongside amazing chefs learning to cook amazing dishes over fire
  • Go foraging with Indigenous Elders as they share forest teachings
  • Learn to drum with African drum master teachers
  • Build your own drum
  • Record bird song
  • Art workshops
  • Leadership skills
  • Beekeeping and honey workshops
  • Make meaningful and lasting friendships and relationships
  • And so much more: campfires, yoga, journalling, cooking workshops, hiking, paddle making, giant bubble soccer, learn to grow food…
Girl making bread outdoors

RETREATS ARE CUSTOMIZED FOR EACH GROUP FOR MAXIMUM IMPACT

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING…

I can authentically say that the debriefing that followed the 7-day trip was insightful. The entire experience has stimulated our students with an improved sense of maturity, as well as a heightened awareness of belonging to a larger community… As their teacher, I did notice that the connections that were created during the organized activities impressed each individual teen alike. Their perception of differences and similarities between Cree Indigenous adolescents living in a remote northern community and teens residing in a rural southern location of Canada came into focus during the week -long event. After all the sharing, laughter and deepened connections, there appears to be a clearer definition of identity along with a broadened refinement of world view for each teen. ~Teacher

Experiences not only depend on the place or the program itself, but also on the people with whom you interact. In my case, I really enjoyed the experience, simply the fact of changing my routine and learning new things made it wonderful for me, although I have difficulty with English, I am advancing step by step and I am very grateful for the opportunity to have been able to be there. ~Participant

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Elephant Thoughts
233639 Concession 2 WGR
Durham, Ontario
Canada N0G 1R0

1.705.444.2012