SHINECanada President, Madison@Shinecan.ca

In 2011, when I was in grade 12, I told my girlfriends that I was going to move to Australia. This small town girl from Ilderton Ontario wanted adventure and the only place that I could think of that was far enough away was Sydney.

With startling reactions from my friends and tears from my family, I moved down under to develop my leadership skills at Hillsong International Leadership College.

At school, a friend of mine introduced me to SHINE and suggested that I become a volunteer. Initially, I scoffed at the idea of SHINE and my first thoughts were, “girls seriously don’t know about their worth?” * said sarcastically *. It wasn’t until a year later that I felt like I should look into it again. Once I learned about the message, and the values I started falling in love with this program. I realized that I didn’t initially like to idea of teaching girls about their worth because to be honest, at that time I didn’t even know my own worth. I didn’t realize that my worth is more than my looks than boys than my friends or family, I have worth because of who I am as a human and that’s it (I’m still learning about my own worth, I don’t think it’s ever something you arrive at). I thought I had moved to Sydney to learn about leadership, but I actually learned that I am incredibly passionate about building into girls and women.

When it was time for me to move home (which is another story in itself), I knew SHINE had to come home with me. I knew that I wanted to bring this message home and teach my neighbours, and the girls in my world about their worth.

Since then, this team has worked hard to establish SHINE in Ontario and Europe by partnering with organizations, non-profits, and religious groups.

I hope that you get involved in SHINE. Not for myself or for our mission, but for yourself, because you are worth far more than you could ever imagine. I hope you know that and if not, I hope you come to know that.