Member's Statement Writing Competition
Launched in 2023, Bhutila Karpoche's Member's Statement Writing Competition was open to local high school students. Students were asked to submit a written statement on a topic they feel passionate about, modelled off of the statements MPPs present in the legislature at Queen’s Park to draw attention to an issue of their choosing. The winner and their family were invited to Queen's Park to watch as Bhutila read the winning submission in the legislature.
Girls Government
Girls Government is a program ran by Bhutila Karpoche to introduce young women to the political environment, get politically active, and consider politics as a career option. This is a non-partisan initiative that was launched in 2008 and has been implemented in ridings across Ontario by MPPs from all political parties. Once a year, grade eight girls from a junior public school in Parkdale—High Park participated.
Ontario Parliamentary Friends of Tibet Summer Youth Program
In 2019, Bhutila Karpoche helped to launch the first Ontario Parliamentary Friends of Tibet (OPFT) Summer Youth Program. The paid internship program is to provide youth of Tibetan origin the opportunity to get a behind the scenes experience and on the job learning in a Member of Provincial Parliament’s Office.
Phone Your Government
in 2018, Bhutila Karpoche launched Phone Your Government, an initiative which is inspired by "phone zapping", a tool that has long been used in organizing. Phoning your government does three things very effectively:
- Allows the government to hear directly the people’s voices on issues.
- Increases visibility of the issue as phone messages are harder to miss or ignore
- When done consistently and in great numbers, phoning slows down the government’s ability to take action on issues that are not supported by the public.
Unfortunately, due to disconnected phone lines from various ministry offices, Phone Your Government could not continue.