Be the Change’s climate storytelling workshops for high school students start with two simple questions:
-What comes to mind when you think about climate change?
-Thinking about climate change, what emotions and feelings come up?
I’ve delivered this workshop dozens of times, but I’m always struck by students' responses:
“Drastic temperature changes, environmental disasters....I feel hopeless.”
“Ice melting, forest fires...I feel angry, disappointed, sad.”
“End of the world… I feel fear and impending doom.”
But this storytelling workshop, which we organize and deliver in collaboration with the UBC Climate Hub, isn’t about reinforcing the severity of the climate crisis or students’ feelings of despair and grief.
It’s about helping students turn their own associations and emotions with climate change into personal, compelling climate stories aimed at calling others to action. It’s about empowering students to raise their voice and call for change!
Learning through examples just how powerful youth climate stories can be, students begin to see their role in the climate crisis differently. Here’s what students had to say after the hour of storytelling and creation:
“I have more power and bigger role in fighting climate change than I thought.”
“I realized that I have a voice and I can help our environment just by telling my story.”
“It showed me that there is hope out there and that people are actually trying to make change happen.”
Imagine if youth across BC and Canada received this workshop, and learned to harness their fear and grief into powerful stories. Imagine if with these stories, youth were able to bring their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles onboard with ambitious climate action.
You can help turn this vision into a reality through a $5, $10 or $50 monthly gift to Be the Change (a registered Canadian charity). As part of our Giving Tuesday campaign, your gift will be matched by a generous donor, doubling your impact!
We delivered an amazing 29 climate storytelling workshops in our pilot last school year. We’ve adapted the workshop for virtual delivery and gearing up to reach hundreds more students this year. But with reduced revenues due to Covid-19, we need your support more than ever. Chip in to help empower a generation of climate storytellers!
Thank you,
George Radner
Executive Director, Be the Change Earth Alliance
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