Global Issues Network - Student Leadership Workshop

This week our high school students from the Global Issues Network (GIN) subgroups (Lily Project, Shanghai Style, Bye Bye Plastic Bags, Food Sustainability, Sustainable Success, Amity, and Ecolve) and their teacher supervisors recently joined a workshop called “Amplifying Student Leadership Through Triple Well-Being.” This workshop focused on reflection, connection, and meaningful action. Each subgroup shared their own ideas and projects, showing the different interests and talents of our GIN community. 

The workshop helped students to use the Triple Well-Being framework to think about their projects. The framework suggests that students connect to three things when creating projects: 1. Self 2. Others and 3. Earth. This framework helps students reflect on how their work can impact the wider school community and beyond. Students discussed their current projects or new ideas in small groups and made simple diagrams to show how their projects connect to one or more parts of Triple Well-Being. This helped students see the strengths of their projects and where they could improve. 

Teacher supervisors joined the sessions and talked with students, asking questions and encouraging deeper thinking. Students also did a gallery walk, looking at other groups’ projects, sharing ideas, and learning from each other. 

The workshop ended with a reflection of time, where students wrote personal takeaways, insights, questions, or intentions for their next steps. This shows that service projects are not only about results but also about learning, teamwork, and growth. Here are some of the students’ perspectives:  

Students shared what they learned and how their projects connect to Triple Well-Being. Many found new ideas for improving their projects and were inspired by other groups. One student said, “I’ve gained insight on the conversation of self, people, and earth & the necessity of one to improve the other,” and another said, “I enjoyed this workshop. We should do more team bonding.” There were comments about next steps being connecting with communities beyond Concordia and questions about moving forward and “How to reach further horizons and create more impact?” Their reflections show how important this workshop was for learning and thinking about their work. 

Our GIN leaders, Abriel, Hana, and Christine, shared these insights: 

The three of us are leaders in Sustainable Success and Shanghai Styles, two of GIN’s subgroups, and this workshop has helped us better understand Triple Well Being as the balance between caring for the self, supporting others, and impacting the wider community. We realized that projects are most effective when all three of these areas are addressed rather than focusing on one or the other. Moving forward, we hope to apply this insight into our upcoming projects such as pet therapy to alleviate personal stress, strengthen peer connection, and normalize conversations around stress during the AP exam week. Similarly, in the Shanghai Styles subgroup, we hope that our future secondhand sales can allow individuals to find unique representative pieces, change the stigma behind preloved clothes, and reduce the amount of new clothes in our community.  

To conclude, this workshop is an important step for GIN at our school. Students showed creativity and engagement with the many meaningful projects already happening at Concordia. By continuing to reflect, share ideas, and work together, students are growing as leaders and making a positive impact in our school community. This workshop helps make both GIN projects and our school community stronger. 

We are excited to continue these conversations and grow more from the results and ideas shared in this first GIN workshop of 2026.  

-GIN Supervisors and Student Leaders (Global Issues Network)