A grade nine student at Assumption College Catholic High School will have an audience of hundreds today when she competes in the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies annual Speaker's Idol final.
Faith Aborode is one of 12 finalists who will compete in the national competition. Students and community members across Canada will watch her presentation and those of her competitors virtually.
Other competitors are from Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador and Alberta.
This year, students based their speeches on Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal's quote "Information is resistance."
The centre said it chose the theme because we are "at a time when society is polarized, and hate crimes are on the rise across the country."
Aborode's speech is about how she envisions creating change in the world.
More than 250 students across the country submitted speeches. The presentations were judged in two rounds, the first for students in grades six to eight, and the second for those in grades nine to 12. A panel of judges chose the best ones from each round.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies is committed to ending anti-Semitism, human rights and democracy.