RESCUE MISSION CANADA, an incorporated, non-profit environmental organization run by young people and mentored by adults, began with the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where more than 175 world leaders agreed to cooperate and plan together for the future of the planet. This blueprint became known as Agenda 21, written in language very difficult for most people to understand. Peace Child International, a UN affiliate and one of the premier children's organizations in the world, took it upon themselves to produce a children's version of Agenda 21, entitled RESCUE MISSION: PLANET EARTH. The book boasted a collaborative effort of 10,000 students in over 125 countries, was translated into 20 languages and remains, even to this day, chronically out of print due to its overwhelming popularity!

At Spruce Glen School in Huntsville, Ontario, in 1992, the grade eight class helped to rewrite two chapters from the original Agenda 21 - Poverty and Consumption. By doing so, they became the only school in the country to contribute to RESCUE MISSION: PLANET EARTH and as a result, were the National Focal Point for this project until June 1995. What began as a classroom initiative many years ago, has now mushroomed into a national organization called RESCUE MISSION CANADA.

The students of RESCUE MISSION CANADA actively raised awareness in their communities, wrote countless articles for local and regional newspapers, were interviewed for television and radio programs, tele-conferenced internationally with other students involved in Rescue Mission projects, and were recognized in the House of Commons as well as the Ontario Provincial Legislature. Representatives of the organization presented a copy of Rescue Mission: Planet Earth to Sheila Copps, then Minister of the Environment in 1995, were featured in Today's Generation online magazine, were nominated for numerous youth awards as well as a YTV award, wrote and presented numerous musical Cabarets, spearheaded local and regional cleanups and acted as the coordinating body for the 1999 Millennium Young Peoples Congress in Hawaii.

At the same time, RESCUE MISSION CANADA students contributed to many other Peace Child publications. These included A WORLD IN OUR HANDS (1995) - a history of the UN; STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS (1998) - based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights; PACHAMAMA (1997) - fashioned from the GEO report from UNEP/UNDP; SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (2000) based on the Human Development Report and used as a senior level text book in the UK; BE THE CHANGE (2000) the official report of the MYPC in Hawaii; STAND UP, SPEAK UP (2001) - a powerful youth commentary on the Convention on the Rights of the Child; RESCUE MISSION: PLANET EARTH 2002 (assessing the progress made in the ten years since Rio); and the most recent publication, WATER RIGHTS AND WRONGS.

RESCUE MISSION CANADA students have had the opportunity to travel to the White House (Peace Child's headquarters in the UK) and other international locations to act as youth editors for a number of the publications listed above, as well as to attend various youth conferences in locations such as Hawaii, Morocco and Scotland.

Since its humble beginning in a classroom in central Ontario more than a decade ago, RESCUE MISSION CANADA'S mandate has stayed the same: empower youth by giving them a sense of their ability, obligation and responsibility to the planet and its people. By doing this, it only follows that they will become responsible adults, citizens, employees and parents in later life.