January Newsletter: Sharing Gratitude & Excitement for 2024!
Happy New Year! We hope you had a memorable holiday season and a positive start to 2024. At Be the Change, we are energized and excited for the year ahead!
Happy Birthday to Be the Change!
On October 21, 2020, Be the Change Earth Alliance reached a huge milestone. We celebrated our 15th year of providing environmental education and empowerment across Metro Vancouver and BC!
Just Launched: Youth for Climate Action
Be the Change is proud to announce that it has officially launched its pilot project, Youth for Climate Action (Y4CA), this month. Y4CA aims to empower Vancouver youth in high school environmental clubs and community centre youth groups to design and implement meaningful climate action projects in their communities. Through taking positive actions, youth will actively work towards reducing their anxiety and despair caused by climate change. 
These youth-led projects will also directly reduce local ecological footprints and engage local community members in climate action. By the end of Y4CA, participating youth will have acquired an increased sense of agency and hope, and gained the lifelong skills, training, knowledge and understanding required for taking climate action in their communities and beyond. The Y4CA project is set to run during the 2020-21 academic year.
Recap: Oct 23rd Pro-D Conferences
Be the Change is honoured to have been able to present workshops at four teacher Professional Development (Pro-D) conferences this year: BC Science Teachers Association, BC Social Studies Teachers Association, Environmental Educators Provincial Specialists Association, and Computer Using Educators of BC. Through our workshops, we engaged 238 teachers and educators on our suite of online eco-social learning resources. Be the Change also exhibited booths for Provincial Intermediate and Middle School Teachers Association and Teachers of Home Economics Specialist Association. We are thrilled to have the wonderful opportunity to share our resources with teachers and educators across BC that are passionate about sustainability and eco-social issues, and want to empower their students to become sustainability and environmental changemakers.
Help Be the Change celebrate our 15th birthday with a gift to help us continue our work empowering educators and youth for a more sustained and just world!
Latest posts
December 2023 Newsletter - ⛄‘Tis the season to celebrate at Be The Change!⛄
As 2023 comes to a close and school winds down for winter break, we’re taking a moment to reflect back over the past year. 2023 was a very regenerative time for BTCEA! We developed and delivered our Climate Action, Resilience, and Emotions (CARE) program in communities on the frontlines of wildfires in our province. And as an organization, we prioritized creating space to discuss what decolonization could look like both internally, and in our programming. Here are the highlights:
Oct 2023 Newsletter - Check out our mid-October climate-justice resources!
Hello,
An introduction from Communications Coordinator, Lucy Wicken
Dear Be The Change community,
As we approach mid-October, I’m reflecting on the changing seasons, from the warm and active days of summer to the cooler and quieter days of autumn. Personally, I’ve noticed a desire to slow down, take on fewer responsibilities, and stay inside where it’s cozy. Have you felt this way too?
As 21st century humans living in a world that operates under capitalism, white supremacy, and other oppressive systems, we can be made to feel guilt or shame about listening & responding to our needs. We are expected to maintain the same energy and productivity levels throughout the year, no matter how cold or dark the days are, how heavy world events feel, or how much we’re struggling in our personal lives.
This is where the concept of regenerative education comes in. Introduced to the BTCEA team by former staff member Jake, regenerative education calls on us to slow down and turn inward to consider our connection with the natural world. It asks us to examine the living systems that are breaking down due to violent human activity (such as fossil fuel extraction, destruction of Indigenous lands, and human-caused flooding and wildfires) and connect this breakdown with our own high levels of stress.
