On Friday, February 19th, members of the Trinity College School community had the opportunity to attend the virtual You Belong Summit hosted by Bishop Strachan School. The summit allowed for a safe space for students to share with and learn from one another’s experiences and helped to create a stronger sense of allyship and interschool connections.

The day started with a speech and question and answer session by keynote speaker Sandy Hudson. Sandy Hudson is credited with co-founding the official Toronto branch of Black Lives Matter that has created a much larger presence for the movement in Canada.

Students were then able to attend workshops of their choice, including: “The Next Step: Being a Leader of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at School”; “Whose Land is This? – Treaties, Land Acknowledgements and Indigenous Solidarity”; “Who Are You? Identifying Your Identity”; and many, many more. In each workshop, students discussed their feelings on different topics and talked about solutions to various problems.

The day ended with a regional debrief where attendees discussed what they learned with everyone from other schools in our region. TCS attended this debrief with students from Albert College, Ashbury College and Elmwood College. Overall, students enjoyed the summit and hope to attend next year. Thank you to Bishop Strachan School for hosting, and a big thank you to Ms. Krista Koekkoek and Ms. Zoe Walwyn for being our teacher chaperones!

- By Bolu Abiola, communications steward