A Time to Flourish: TakingITGlobal Releases a New Resource for Emerging Social Innovators

Jennifer Corriero, Executive Director, TakingITGlobal

We are at a critical point in the history of humanity where the role of education in the lives of students needs to unlock a possibility thinking mindset. Learners need to be surrounded by different perspectives from both peers and professionals in ways that are uplifting and allow for meaningful contributions to communities locally, nationally and globally.

On Wednesday June 14th, 2023, OCAD University’s Inclusive Design Research Centre partnered with TakingITGlobal to host a gathering to celebrate the launch of Flourish: A Workbook for Social Innovators. This 300 page book features diverse perspectives from over 50 contributing authors. Flourish is a book I wish I had at the age of 19 as a high-school student when I co-founded TakingITGlobal.

It is also a book I wish I had as a post-secondary student, while thinking about the future I wanted to shape and work towards. It was remarkable for me to hear from 19 year old Sprout Fellow Sahejpreet Dhillon who joined us for the event. She reflected on how she has been utilizing the content from the Flourish book as part of her Sprout Fellowship experience and planning her community-based project that is unfolding in the upcoming months.

Our team at TakingITGlobal has been delighted to launch the 2023 Sprout Ideas Fellowship with support from the Government of Canada’s Canada Service Corps along with contributing partners including Deloitte.

The health and vibrancy of a society relies on the mindsets and collective imagination of the people along with the capacity to collaborate in the process of shaping the organizations and systems that we are a part of. Opportunities for impact and access to spaces, funding, networks and mentorship need to be provided for ideas to take shape, talents to be cultivated and for new initiatives to blossom.

I dream of a future where every high school student, every postsecondary student and every first year employee on a new job has access to propose ideas to a local micro-grants funding stream that is responsive and adaptive to the needs of communities. The best way to learn is through experiences driven by the interests of the learner and the world around them, where they are also provided with materials and resources that are relevant to the lives of the learners.