Leadership Through HipHop

This program is typically a regional program where youth that are surfacing with leadership qualities in their home communities are brought together for an intensive 5-day program.

Examine what is a leader and how a leader may be different in a cultural context. There are still lots of fun activities, as we also teach dance and prepare for a friendly competition between communities for the final day, but all the activities are geared towards learning about leadership by experiencing it.

Creating young leaders for tomorrow is all about building the core skills and confidence to respect each other and learn how to motivate and work with others. This program builds on core skills that the youth will be able to bring back to their own communities and directly apply to helping keep their own HipHop club flourishing. Everything we do is directly related to helping sustain programs.


Some of the activities include bringing in young children and having the teenage leaders directly experience what it is like to teach and take control of running a program. We also involve Elders and hear from them about their experiences with leadership. Traditional legends are used to help teach the art of creation so that the young leaders can learn how to creatively produce their own dance shows and how to create works of art that involve everyones creative opinions.

There is lots of role-playing around the issues that effect young peoples lives and games that explore the concepts of communication, trust and respect.

Its a powerful week and this program has been delivered in Nunavut and Nunavik. It is a great follow-up to the initial “Social Work Through HipHop” program.

Youth who have completed this program have even come to other communities as junior BluePrintForLife staff in training – being able to put these skills into full practice.