Youth Education
For information about the Route to Victory Battlefield Tour 2018, go to https://ppclifoundation.ca/events/route-to-victory-battlefield-tour-2018/
The PPCLI Foundation supports these youth programs
- Opportunities for youth to tour battlefields where Canadian soldier have fought
- Scholarships and bursaries for deserving youth
- Support for cadet corps where youth learn citizenship, discipline, comradery and history. The PPCLI Association is the lead agency for support of PPCLI Cadet Corps. There are thirteen cadet corps across western Canada and the north atha are affliliated with the PPCLI. (See a list here)
- Educational programs to aid learning about Canada’s rich history, including programs designed to send worthy youth to Canadian battlefields.
We intend to ensure that present and future generations of Canadian youth have the opportunity to learn about, honour and remember the price paid – the sacrifices made – to preserve our Canadian way of life. This can be done in a number of ways, for example, through tours of Canadian battlefields as was done in May of 2015. Some of the thoughts about these experiences are captured below.
Belgian and Canadian youth at Frezenberg, Flanders, Belgium on 8 May 2015 following the re-dedication of the PPCLI Memorial.
“… I knew [the battlefield tour] would be an incredible experience, but I know now that it was a life-changing adventure. I have never changed so much in one week.”
Cadet PO1 Charlotte Clark, #5 Rainbow (Sea) Cadets, Victoria, BC
“My experiences in Europe have opened my eyes to different cultures and history of Canada … that I didn’t know. … the trenches at … [Vimy Ridge] showed me how real this event was and made me realize the hardships that my great grandfather would have gone through. I can now see why the land at Vimy was given to us because we had so many casualties for one battle.” Cadet MCpl Tyler West, 2554 PPCLI Cadet Corps, Calgary, AB.
PPCLI Foundation President, Kent Foster, speaks with Canadian youth on 8 May 2015 following a remembrance service at the Menin Gate, upon which are inscribed the names of more than 53,000 soldiers of the Commonwealth who died in Flanders and who know no known burial place. The poem “In Flanders Fields” written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae is inscribed on the pillar in rear.
These testimonials and others like them resulting from the Foundation’s Frezenberg Commemorative Youth Education Program in May 2015 point to the value of exposing Canada’s youth to on-site experiences which demonstrate the tremendous sacrifice and the price paid by previous generations of Canadians. and we are planning to conduct a Vimy 100th Anniversary Youth Education Program in April of 2017.
In addition to these tours, we will continue to support and facilitate the youth education programs at The Military Museums and elsewhere.
We also intend to provide educational opportunities to youth and serving and former soldiers and their families through bursary and scholarship programs ($30,000 annually).
Cadet Corps provide an excellent opportunity for youth to learn citizenship, discipline, teamwork and comradery, as well as learning something of Canada’s rich history. We will support these programs that are especially helpful to disadvantaged youth.