During his time with A Better World, co-founder Eric Rajah says it's always been a vision of his to engage young people, particularly high school students to be humanitarian leaders.

Rajah was proud to host around 40 students from across the country at a first time conference this weekend at Burman University in Lacombe to do just that - inspire.

He says there was one main lesson he wanted them all to leave with.

“They can do something, the problems of this world is overwhelming but by bringing them here together we want to kindle their passion to do good, that’s one of the tools, the other tools are simply the practical tools, how do you actually carry out a project at home, overseas, fundraising, inspiring other people to join them”.

(students engaged by the suite of speakers at A Better World's ACT: Humanitarian Leaders of Tomorrow conference over the weekend)

Rajah says those in attendance are already doing amazing fundraising initiatives in their own schools to make a difference, and they can all learn from each other.

“The students we have here, 4 schools combined have raised over $450,000 in the last 7 years for A Better World causes and one elementary school that is represented here, that school has raised $200,000 in about 7 years.  It’s not the measurement of money, but it shows the passion and the fact you can engage other people”.

17 year old, grade 11 student Megan Sutherland from Delta, BC is one of those students who was in attendance already having success hosting events at her high school and raising funds for global causes.

 “I do kind of an annual fundraiser for a global initiative, and I run that in my school, so this year we donated over $10,800 to the “She Has a Name” project, which is to get women out of the sex trafficking industry in Bangkok, Thailand and last year we did the Rwandan school for the deaf, creating more facilities for them there”.

Her school raised the bulk of those funds through 30 Hour Famine events.

When asked what inspires her to lead initiatives like these, she simply says she counts her blessings.

“I was kind of just bring it back to the idea kind of like a birthing lottery, I was super, super lucky and I didn’t deserve any, like it was just given to me pretty much, like I am a white, passing, middle class Canadian woman and I was just born into that, and there’s so many people in the world who were just born into more difficult situations, they didn’t do anything to deserve those types of situations and I don’t think that it’s kind of right for me to just take advantage of my privilege and not recognize how privileged I am in comparison to other people’s situations”.

Rajah hopes to make the Humanitarian Leaders of Tomorrow Youth Conference an annual conference, with the possibility of taking it to other provinces.