A youth baseball program – the first of its kind in the country – is taking place in the Yukon through the leadership of young coaches and the Jays Care Foundation.

The Yukon Child & Youth Advocate Office paired with the charitable arm of the Toronto Blue Jays to form the Yukon Rookie League which is focused on offering youth the chance to learn coaching and leadership skills and then offer what they’ve learned back in their communities.

Child and Youth Advocate Annette King said this idea came through the Truth and Reconciliation Calls for Action focused on sports and reconciliation. It started with four Indigenous youth in an advisory committee to help decide what they wanted this partnership to be with the Blue Jays.

“Twelve-year-olds have a lot to say,” King said. “So we started an advisory committee a year ago and asked these kids ‘What do you want to do in our partnership?’”

This developed into the rookie league program, which Laura Simeson with the Jays Care Foundation said is the first-ever youth led project through the foundation.

“It’s a youth-led baseball league,” Simeson, the senior manager of programs, told the Star Wednesday. “Youth leading their peers and using baseball as a tool to build reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth.”

The Jays Care program made its first trip up in October to start planning for the league and then again last month to facilitate a leadership workshop.

The three-day event with about 30 participants – mostly Grade 7 students – focused on providing youth with the skills they need to go back to their communities and build a team.

“They had the chance to decide what their programs would look like, their team name, how they were going to recruit kids to come out to their program and who they needed the support from to make it happen,” Simeson said.

Now the eight teams of Grade 7 leaders are taking what they learned to form teams culminating in a tournament on June 23.

“Students are leading the way, coaching other kids and engaging other kids who don’t otherwise play sports,” King said. “We’re using the vehicle of baseball to make that happen.”

Simeson said the student leaders are required to run at least eight rookie league sessions with their teams before the tournament, but there isn’t a specific mandate for the number of players on each team. The eight leadership teams are: a girl’s group of four leaders running out of Elijah Smith Elementary School for girls in Grades 4-6, a boy’s team at Elijah Smith, a group at Jack Hulland Elementary School, a team from the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and teams from the communities of Old Crow, Teslin and Beaver Creek.

Based in Toronto, Simeson said she is kept up to speed on the progress of the teams through update meetings every three weeks with the adult supporters assisting the youth with their team.

“The youth are stepping up, planning out programs and feeling good about themselves as leaders,” she said. “The fact they’ve all started is a really awesome success. We’re really proud of them and hope they will all be at the tournament.”

From this partnership with the Blue Jays, the organization will also be hosting their first Honda Super Camp in the territory just a few days after the mini-tournament.

The camp for youth between the ages of 9-16 will be hosted by former major league players and Blue Jays alumni to teach basic ball skills.

The two-day camp will run June 25-26 at the Pepsi Softball Centre.

“One day off the cuff I said if we are trying to build ball in our territory, will the Super Camp ever come here,” King said. “And now they’re coming a few days after our Jays Care project.

“To be able to have that for our children in the Yukon – that you just dream about being able to do.”