By Clint Hurley
Monsignor Paul Dwyer co-op
student
How can educators and
parents strengthen and sustain
healthy schools?
The answer: You get
S.W.O.L.E.
S.W.O.L.E stands for
Self Respect, Work Hard,
Overcome Adversity, Lead
by Example, and
Excellence, and is a leadership
development program
run by Orlando Bowen of
Gameday: Training and
Consulting, and One Voice
One Team.
It is a co-ed, sport leadership
program devoted to
helping students find something
to dedicate their time
to and keep them out of
trouble.
Rod Power, a parent living
in South Oshawa, finds
the stereotypes assigned to
people living in his area, as
well as the area itself, are
unfair and need to be
stopped.
He says this program
was just what the
children needed.
“Continually,
we hear comments
like, ‘wow, you
live in the south
end. I guess
there’s some good pockets’
or just simply ‘oh’, as if
there’s something wrong
with where we live,” Power
explains.“This program helped
bring awareness. When they
ran the program, it brought
the community together, as
they wanted to be
involved.”
The idea for the program
came about when Power,
along with his local school
principal and other faculty
members, gathered for the
Durham District School
Board’s ‘Developing a
Program of School, Family,
and Community
Partnerships to
Increase Student
Success.’“The school
had asked us to
form a committee
to come up with ways to get
kids involved in extracurricular
stuff. My friend
Orlando Bowen runs the
program, so I called him and
it went from there,” he says.
Power, his friend Bowen
and the foundation of One
Voice One Team worked
together to give South
Oshawa a better stereotype,
by championing school
activities.
The program not only
aims to help students build
the strong character attributes
fostered by S.W.O.L.E,
but also allows them to
begin to see themselves as
young, contributing leaders
in their school and in their
community.
Highly energetic and
physically engaging, the
program emphasizes cooperative
activities to stimulate
learning.
Children learn they can
all be positive contributors
to their communities by
making decisions that open
the doors to success.“It’s important that we
get involved with our
schools,” Power says.“The more we’re
involved, the better off our
kids will become.”
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