Young leader honoured for hard work

On Oct. 15 he will be presented with the Co-operative Youth Leadership Award during a ceremony in Burlington, Ontario.

A graduate of the University of Ottawa and Algonquin College, Brisebois entered the co-operative sector by chance. He said he took an internship because “the project seemed interesting.”

Once he discovered what it was like working with a co-operative, he developed a passion for the sector and decided to stay.

Brisebois’ co-op experience started in 2005 when he took an internship with the Conseil de la cooperation de l’Ontario (CCO) through the co-operative internship experience program. When his six month placement came to an end, CCO hired him as its youth program coordinator.

During his time at CCO, the skilled juggler and comedian spread his enthusiasm for the co-op sector using both traditional and non-traditional methods. He introduced the co-op business model to high school students and served as the Ontario representative on the Youth Advisory Group for the Conseil Canadien de la Coopération (CCC) and as a youth intern on Caisse Populaire Trillium’s board of directors. He also worked to reintroduce Co-operative Youth of Service, an Ontario program that helps young French-speaking people create their own job.

Bilingual, Brisebois was able to reach out to both anglophone and francophone youth and keep communication open between the two communities.

In his spare time over the last three years, Brisebois has been working with his childhood friend to develop a youth centre in the east end. This past May he left CCO to become the executive director of SKETCH Orléans.

Youth have clearly become the focus and passion of Brisebois’ chosen career path.

“Young people are not just the future of the movement, they are part of the present,” he said.

With files from Guillaume St-Hilaire.