The Midnightsun Toastmasters Club, a group that helps to improve communication and public speaking skills of its members, created a youth leadership program after years of planning.
When Yellowknifer spoke to Toastmaster club members in 2021, they said that a youth leadership program was being planned for when the club would be fully established. Two years later, they did just that.
Oyuka Bernabe, the club’s vice president of public relations, said that she was pushing to bring the program to the city late last year before they were officially established as a club and were sponsored by the Midnight Sun Toastmasters. All of the materials they would need for the program arrived in April and they began classes in June.
Over the course of eight sessions, one hour each, members aged nine to 12 work towards acquiring the skills of a Toastmaster, such as listening, speaking and organization.
One of the activities has the children write a speech and present in front of the group while the audience has to listen carefully so they can ask the speaker questions.
On June 30, each of the participants graduated from the program.
Bernabe provided Yellowknifer with feedback about the program given by the youth.
Zephine Talaver said that the program helped her to make new friends, socialize and learn how to make speeches.
Oscar Mifflin said that he liked the activity called jokemaster, where members each wrote a word on a piece of paper, passed it to a friend, and had to make up a story about the word.
Sebastian Bernabe also said that he enjoyed jokemaster and he learned to make eye contact with more people, became comfortable with making his own speech and presenting in front of the group.
The program was hosted by the public library and classes will resume in September.
Correction: This is an updated version of the story. The previous version
