Youth Leader

From Atlantic Canada to 
Thailand, Michael Doyle Cluett empowers youth with the message of hope

Michael Doyle Cluett spent three months in Bhutan, working with youth groups. There, he was exposed to a new idea: gross national happiness as opposed to gross national product. “It was a way of measuring the country’s progress using a non-economic paradigm,” he says.

It was, in fact, a statewide model that meshed with Doyle Cluett’s own personal philosophy. As a member of the Mi’kmaq First Nation in Nova Scotia, he says, his cultural values had always leaned toward non-monetary systems. His mother taught him from an early age the value of contributing—to the family, to the community, to the culture. “Communal space and communal living was always part of his world view,” says Cathy Martin, a Mi’kmaq filmmaker who has been a friend to Michael since he was a baby.

But the rest of the world didn’t always share Doyle Cluett’s philanthropic views. As he grew, Doyle Cluett, now 24, began to notice a widening gap between haves and have-nots and by the time he reached high school, he was convinced he had a role to play. “Before I started volunteering, my life was lacking something,” says Doyle Cluett. “I was looking for something more meaningful in my life.”

He became a facilitator and youth leader for Genuine Progress Index (GPI) Atlantic, a registered charity committed to building strong and vital communities through education, outreach and empowerment. That won him the attention of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which, in 2007, recruited him to participate in a 15-month program called Youth Engage! that connected youth in Canada and Thailand. As part of the program, the then 21-year-old attended the 3rd International Conference on Gross National Happiness in Thailand, which brought together 660 delegates, including 220 youth from 16 countries.

Later that year, he was a facilitator of the Move Your World conference co-hosted by the Canadian Red Cross, GPI Atlantic, UNICEF and the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation. The conference brought together some 50 teens from Atlantic Canada to learn ways they can make positive social change on global issues, such as peace and conflict, HIV/AIDS, poverty, cross-cultural appreciation, development and global food security. (Two years later, the Red Cross awarded him with its Young Humanitarian Award.)

“More and more, I’m discovering a deeper purpose to my work,” says Doyle Cluett, who spent most of last summer running a social justice youth camp in the Maritimes. This summer, he is helping to bring together indigenous artists from all over the world for a week-long retreat. Called First Voices, the program aims to say in song what Doyle Cluett articulates with every one of his volunteer works: tolerance, open-mindedness and connectedness.

—Liza Finlay