Anika Barlow
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Is making a difference by challenging young people to set high expectations for themselves
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“I want to see more young people challenge low expectations put on them and work hard for change. Once you find something you’re passionate about, there’s sort of like a no going back point, where you press forward despite fears and roadblocks, and I think you just have to come to that point where you say I’m going to do this no matter what.”
Anika Barlow is an eighteen-year-old from the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, who is passionate about inspiring young people to set high expectations for themselves, and live out their full potential. She is making a difference in the field of education: in Uganda, by raising funds to put ten young people through secondary school; and in her own former high school, by teaching her peers in Canada about just how privileged their lives are, and how much potential they have to impact world issues.
Anika is currently working for Africa Community Technical Service (ACTS), her local NGO, with which she has been volunteering for several years. She first got involved with international development issues in grade 10, when she joined the Interact club at her former high school. “Though I had always been interested in other countries and cultures, I never realized there were so many opportunities, especially as a young person, to contribute to the needs of the people in those places.”
But the real turning point for Anika was the Red Cross Global Issues Symposium for Youth, which she attended in her grade 12 year. Attending the Symposium inspired Anika to initiate a legacy project at her school, called “10 for 10,” which would sponsor ten young people in Uganda to pursue secondary education. “I had seen in past years how each graduating class left their mark in the form of a bench or some new sporting equipment for the school. When I looked around I saw enough benches and a real opportunity to do something meaningful.”
The project was not without its challenges – Anika was surprised by how much opposition she initially encountered from some of the students and teachers. But by taking risks, and acting despite opposition and their own fears, Anika and her classmates successfully raised over $13,000 to send ten children of widows in the Kikigate region of Uganda to secondary school, beginning in February, 2011. Anika hopes that those ten students will use their education to then transform their own communities.
Anika’s main motivation for staying involved in international development is to see change, and to make a difference – not just to the people of developing countries, but also to those in her local community: “I want to see more young people challenge low expectations put on them and work hard for change.” She wants to see young people live out their full potential, which often just stays as potential, and doesn’t become action. But her greatest motivation of all is her faith: “I have a desire to live it out.”
When asked what’s next, Anika insists that she’s still learning: “right now, I’m in a place of discovery. I’m learning about who I am and what I’m passionate about.” She is passionate about the outdoors, about exploring, and about motivating other young people to get more involved in their community. Anika will travel to India in March for five months to continue her work with NGOs, hopes to eventually pursue post-secondary studies in international development, and plans to visit the ten students in Uganda whom she helped attend secondary school.
To other Canadian youth who are trying to make a difference, she has this to say: “Do things that are really hard for you. If there’s something that don’t feel like you’re good at, then just give it a try and keep working at it until you are good at it. We create so many limitations for ourselves that probably don’t exist if we just tried something new. Dream big dreams, have goals that are big and exciting, and work together with other people.”
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Thanks to Kaitlyn Braybrooke for the graphic design, to Veronika Klaptocz for the written profiles, to Trevor O'Rourke for the French translation, to Scott Nelson for the website and to Reel Youth for the video profiles. |
© Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) (2011)
