Three times a day — morning, midday, and late afternoon — the whole of Edmonton’s Inner City High School gathers in the angular gymnasium.
There are no bells, loud-speakers, or general announcements breaking the quiet. Instead, students ground themselves in a circle on the floor, speaking into the shared space.
A student facilitator, one of their own, guides the gathering, keeping time and holding space. This is how news travels here. It’s where school announcements are made, where questions are asked and where conflict is resolved. Rather than authority, at the centre of it all is equality. In sitting together, the students practice something simple and radical.
“We say nobody is above each other so nobody stands — that’s how we communicate,” explains Trevon Friesen-Glenn, who is completing his Grade 12 courses.
Established more than 30 years ago by the Inner City Youth Development Association, the independent school caters to marginalized and urban youth, mostly Indigenous, who want a second chance at their secondary education. The school’s Youth Engagement Program, composed of non-teaching staff, helps students overcome challenges — such as life on the streets — by ensuring their out-of-school needs are met.
It’s a second chance for Friesen-Glenn, who enrolled at Inner City last year. Friesen-Glenn is mixed-race: his father is Black, his mother is white. Like his classmates, Friesen-Glenn has experienced oppression in systems, including justice, healthcare and education.
Friesen-Glenn has dropped out of high school multiple times — most recently, to support his family when his father was diagnosed with cancer. The 20-year-old had “all but given up” and was working at a tire shop when he learned about Inner City. He speaks highly of the social worker who accompanies him across the city to counselling appointments, but there’s another person who has had an even greater impact on Friesen-Glenn’s life: Natasha Sarkar.
Sarkar has worked with youth since she graduated from secondary school in Edmonton, where she was born a daughter of immigrants.
Although Sarkar enjoyed growing up in Edmonton, once she became a teacher, she witnessed firsthand how some individuals were marginalized. Some of her students were unhoused, struggling with addiction, and still in high school in their 20s. Inner City High School became a good place where she could make a difference in her hometown.
“I see students all the time who are homeless and their family members are residential school survivors. There’s this generational trauma that’s still affecting them, and that’s what a lot of the Sustainable Development Goals are designed for — to break those cycles,” she says, referring to the 17 goals established by the United Nations to bring peace and prosperity to people globally.
Her daily inspiration comes from youth who have their own ideas for how to make our world a better place. “Global citizenship, to me, helps us create the citizens I want to see in Canada as leaders or influencers in our democracy. If we want to see change in our cities, it comes from these kids who’ve experienced some actual barriers.”
Friesen-Glenn stood out to Sarkar from the start. Out of the hundreds of students she’s taught in the past decade, Sarkar admits he’s one of few who she knew was ready for post- secondary education.
As a way to help him prepare for the next step in his education, she nominated him to attend the Youth Leadership Academy, a five-day conference on leadership and global citizenship for youth across Canada, hosted by Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC).
Friesen-Glenn was offered a spot in the summer academy, and in August 2025, he and Sarkar travelled to Toronto. It was Friesen’s first time flying, and he was anxious about going through security and boarding the flight. Once the flight took off, his nerves calmed. Besides the flight, there was one other thing propelling him forward: self-confidence.
“I guess she [Sarkar] just saw something in me that I always knew I had deep down,” he says.
That same week, Sarkar attended AKFC’s Teachers’ Leadership Institute, an opportunity for teachers to develop the skills and knowledge to integrate international development and sustainability into the classroom. Through this paired opportunity, she was also able to be more engaged in Trevon’s experience and support him to apply his learning after the week in Toronto.
“For Trevon, I think the Youth Leadership Academy was excellent exposure to [other] kids who want to make a difference,” she says.
On the first day of the academy, Friesen-Glenn was thrown into a sea of strangers, scanning the room for a table to sit at. Hesitant at first, he found a spot among a group of other participants, and was immediately dubbed the group’s big brother.
“Many people at the academy were entirely blown away by hearing stories of my upbringing,” Friesen-Glenn shares. “I realized there is so much privilege and an astonishing lack of awareness of the challenges faced by people living in poverty and in generational cycles of trauma … I didn’t realize how far a little awareness could go in influencing people.”
Strong friendships were solidified in just five days and at the end of week, the youth tearfully bid one another farewell. Friesen-Glenn’s biggest takeaway from the academy was digging into the Sustainable Development Goals, and there was one he couldn’t stop thinking about: promoting economic growth and productive employment.
In addition to covering the costs of participating in its leadership programs for youth and educators, AKFC offers micro-grants to Youth Leadership Academy participants who want to put their learning and inspiration into action at home. With the support of Sarkar, Friesen-Glenn submitted an application to AKFC for an employment-inspired project.
Friesen-Glenn had noticed that his peers were more likely to engage with potential careers and post-secondary options when they were provided the opportunity to interact with someone working or studying in a particular field. Through his project, Friesen-Glenn is actively coordinating workshops with people from all walks of life who can give students a behind-the-scenes look at their work. He hopes the interactive learning will result in more Inner City students pursuing meaningful further education.
In addition to believing in his peers, Friesen-Glenn continues to believe in himself. After attending classes at Inner City, he heads to night school, where he is training to be a paramedic.
“When I was a little kid, I had a huge obsession with superheroes, and I always wanted to be one in real life — but I never knew how to do that until my dad got sick,” he says.
Following an advanced cancer diagnosis, paramedics would stream into the family’s home on a weekly basis to provide medical support to Friesen-Glenn’s father. He eventually passed away — the loss was crushing.“Simply put, my dad was my best friend,” Friesen-Glenn reflects.
Amid the grief, one thing became clear: the incredible impact paramedics could have on people during their most vulnerable moments. To Friesen-Glenn, those paramedics, and teachers like Natasha Sarkar, are real-life superheroes, paving the way for him to follow his dreams and build a life where one day, he can be a hero too.
This article was originally published in Global Citizens 2026, a special issue of Canadian Geographic magazine that explores how youth, educators, and communities are engaging with global challenges and opportunities in an increasingly interconnected world.
