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"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leadership Training and Prevocational Opportunities

The Trailblazers Leadership Training program was launched in 2008 providing young adults with physical disability the opportunity to hone their leadership skills and gain prevocational experiences to achieve greater success in high school, university and future employment.

Trailblazers Leadership Training - Mission Statement
(crafted by Trailblazers Leadership participants)
We will take responsibility to develop our leadership skills through understanding, learning,
and accepting other cultures by working cooperatively together as a team while having fun!

The training curriculum covers topics such as interpersonal communication, leadership style assessment, goal setting, and array of healthy lifestyle issues. The material is offered through interactive group discussion, facilitated by young leaders (peer-to-peer approach) with the guidenace and support of a trained adult facilitator and BlazeSports staff.

Graduates from the program also have the opportunity to participate in prevocational experiences by working at the BlazeSports head office and at various BlazeSports programs such as BlazeCamp.

Leaders are made, they are not born. - Vince Lombardi

It matters if you just don't give up. - Stephen Hawking

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing. - Albert Schweitzer

Trailblazers 2008 Photos

Youth Impact Statements – Quotations from Participating Youth, You Blaze!

At the end of the training, youth were asked what the program meant to them and the impact it had on them.
  • Leadership is a word with a very powerful role behind it. With being a leader comes responsibilities. We all have the power to commit to being a great leader when we put forth valiant effort and our applied knowledge of what being a leader is about.
  • Leadership is a growing experience that should last a lifetime.
  • Leadership is a choice. If I choose to be a leader I must be willing to act accordingly at all times. This means that I must accept responsibility in all the decisions I make that affect not only me but those who are around me on a daily basis.
  • Leadership is not a right its a privilege that shouldn't be used just to get over....I also learned that a good leader shouldn't just want to be in charge they're there to help everyone get to one goal.
  • Treat people the way you want to be treated.
  • Everyone is a leader and leadership is a choice. Also leaders don’t flock you find them one at a time.
  • How to deal with different types of people and their personalities.
  • Anyone can be a leader and once you choose to be a leader you have to continue that role. Anyone can be a leader but you have to choose be one.
  • This class has helped me develop self-confidence in the decisions I make so that I can focus on the common goal. Anyone can be a leader.
  • Meeting all the wonderful people, and finding out how fun it could be while learning new leadership skills.
  • To build my brain with knowledge and to have fun at the same time.
  • Leadership is about inspiring others as well as yourself, to make the right choices in life.
  • …what a leader's traits are including kind, respectful, caring, determined, dependable, positive, and confident.
  • Everybody is a leader.

2007 International Youth Leadership Conference

Keynote: Randy Snow