Our Executive Director, Erin, would like to invite teachers, superstar students, and community supporters to come eat and mingle at her home in East Vancouver with other Be the Change community members and teachers on
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!
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We hope you’ve been having a wonderful summer! We have been busy little bees at the office this summer and we would love to take this opportunity to share with you all of the exciting things we have been up to and how you can be part of it. We’re emailing now as we know many of you are preparing for the chaos and change of pace that the fall brings and we wanted to connect with you in the calm before seasons change. In this Back to School newsletter we’ll be sharing a few updates and invites, skip to what interests you!
You can learn more about the Back to School BBQ and get your ticket here. This will be an intimate gathering, so if you’re interested, be sure to get your donation ticket (which covers food, a drink, and a raffle ticket) before we run out, as space is limited! We also welcome you to invite others that may want to learn more about our work. The BBQ will be social, have a fun activity or two, an optional presentation, food and drinks, and a raffle. We’ll be serving Earnest ice cream and Bandidas Taqueria’s classic chips and salsa to go with delicious portabella burgers, and a tasty side – can you say “YUM”? If you can’t attend and still want to support us (because you’re amazing), we’ve got you covered. You could:
Student Leadership in Sustainability:This summer, with the support of our marvelous summer program assistants, we reviewed all of our SLS Research Links, replaced any of links that were out of date with new ones and updated some of our language. Wow, we have a lot of links! Thanks to all the teachers that have also been reporting broken links over the year. We have released some new support resources. We have an “Interconnectedness Activity” which includes an article by an elder and friend of ours, Chief Phil Lane Jr. This can be used instead of Costs and Benefits in Action Packs OR on its own after a student explores a topic (we would love feedback on this as it’s new!). We’re also releasing an “Informed Decision Making” hand-out that can help students take deliberative action or be used as a teacher discussion tool. This was created to support many of the questions and challenges we saw students coming across as we delivered SLS in the classroom and in presentations. Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen many teachers signing up for the 2018-2019 SLS Teacher membership. If you are a teacher and haven’t signed up yet, it’s not too late! Check out our SLS webpage to sign up or get more information. If you aren’t a teacher, but know any that would be interested in SLS, pass this along! Citizens of the Future:
The Citizens of the Future is an evolution of a former project – Climate Action Champions. Last year we ran the Climate Action Champions Initiative for the first time. This initiative included our first youth fellowship as well as delivering engaging, solution-oriented “Climate Action” workshops and assemblies for students from grades 2-12. Through this initiative, students from across the region took big and small actions to reduce the environmental footprint, which resulted in the reduction of over 163 tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. At BTCEA we have had a great deal of fun with this initiative, learned a lot, and received overwhelmingly positive feedback as well as learning opportunities; we look forward to continuing with more programming in the future.
For our 2018-19 Citizens of the Future initiative we will build on previous work and experience as we focus on engaging and empowering at-risk youth (who often miss out on sustainability programming) and emerging youth sustainability leaders (who benefit from additional support). We are thrilled about our updated Climate Leadership Training and Fellowship. Among other things, this evolution allows us to include the type of cross-district youth empowerment that we found students were asking for. Furthermore, we look forward to bringing in more community volunteers to build and expand the impact of our programming. Teachers - Please reach out to us if you would like to book an Environmental Action Workshop. We will prioritize classes and programs that serve at-risk youth, but will offer a few other workshops as well. Email us soon to book a workshop as space is limited: [email protected]. For more information on our Climate Fellowship, check out our website: takeclimateaction.ca/fellowship.
Summer is a season of change for us and we’d love to give a huge shout out and so much gratitude to our Summer Program Assistants who have supported us tremendously over the last four months. Thank you Sam, Haidee, Tyler, and Emma, we appreciate you and already miss you! We are also thrilled to announce our newest core team member, Eugenia Serrano who joined us in early August. You may already know Eugenia who worked with us as a Summer Program Assistant and volunteer from 2015-2016; we are so excited to have her back! We love her tenacity, competency, constant embodiment of our values, and the grace with which she lives sustainably and kindly. We also want to thank Jude Crasta for such incredible support over the past year, and wish him the best in his new role as Managing Partner at Cobalt Strategy Group!
We’re so excited about all of the great work that we’ve been able to do in the past months and we want to make sure we can continue to support the youth and educators in our community. You are a vital part of our community too, and we are asking for your continued support in being able to offer our impactful programs and resources. Please consider donating now if you want to see these programs continue to flourish for years to come. We are extremely grateful for our amazing community and all that you do to help us keep up this important work. Even though it’s cliché, every little bit really does help!
Wishing you a beautiful end to your summer and a plentiful fall. Thank you for all you do!
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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.
