For the last three years, the Ajax school has run the Diversity Leadership Certificate Program for Grades 9, 10 and 11 students to advance diversity through education and to battle all types of discrimination that act as barriers, both socially and culturally, in school and society.

The program “is a demonstration of excellence around diversity and equity,” said principal Donna Modeste. “And it also very much encompasses the whole idea of the social teachings of the Catholic Church. So it’s a beautiful example of a cross-curricular approach and it’s very much in keeping with the Gospel values of compassion and respect and tolerance.”

Modeste says the program keeps with province-wide Catholic graduate expectations for students: to be a discerning believer, effective communicator, reflective and creative thinker, self-directed and responsible life-long leader, responsible citizen, caring family member and collaborative contributor.

This year, the program will run for the fourth time from April to June. Although it is free for students, it costs $2,500 to run. The high school recently won the 2012 Michael Carty Award for running the certificate program and will be reinvesting the $1,000 prize that accompanied the award into the program.

After school, for two hours a week for eight weeks, 30 students will meet to learn about bullying, leadership, communication, pluralism, prejudice, stereotypes, gender issues, diversity and equity, among other topics.

“The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a letter certainly in support of the whole area of equity and diversity, so I feel that for those reasons, this initiative and the number of students that are involved with this certainly impressed the panel,” Modeste said. “Even though the program only runs for three months of the year, we certainly ascribe to the values that are learned through this program, throughout our entire school year and also in a cross-curricular fashion.”

At the end of the program, the students are separated into smaller groups and are in charge of developing in-class workshops to deliver what they’ve learned to their school’s Grade 9 students.

“They have to show potential as being leaders,” said Andrea Douglas on how students are chosen for the program. Douglas is the school’s Student Success Teacher. “They don’t necessarily have to be a leader right now at school in terms of being on student council or in a leadership class, but they had to have shown they have potential to be leaders.”

Students are either nominated to Douglas by their teachers or they approach her themselves.

The Diversity Leadership Certificate Program is run through the Harmony Movement, “a non-profit organization run out of Toronto,” said Douglas, the school’s Harmony Facilitator. “It was formed in 1994 to combat racial intolerance.”

The program’s outcome “is for students to learn how to be a leader for social change,” said Douglas.

“One component is really devoted to discuss the different forms of bullying. It really instructs the participants on how to stand up for victims of bullying, and they really do learn the importance of activism, inclusiveness and respect for others.”

Nelysha Damji, a Grade 11 student, graduated from the certificate program last year.

“I heard a lot of good things about the program from Grade 12 students who had done it the past year,” she said. “I was looking forward to being able to not only learn how to be a better leader in the school, but also have the opportunity to learn more about… our society.”

One of the most important lessons Damji has taken from her experience is the importance of accepting other students, “how to look past people’s skin colour and people’s differences to get along,” she said. She would recommend this program to any student in high school.

“I’ve learned how to communicate with students better,” said Damji, who hopes to study medicine and believes this program will help her in the future.

According to Modeste, “we are looking to develop the whole student to that they can go out into the world and be ambassadors, not only for Catholic education, but ambassadors for others with the whole focus of the Gospel values.”