Filling the Gap in Meaningful Convening Spaces For Young Environmental Leaders
Deep in the Squamish Valley, near moss-covered cedar forests and the flowing Cheakamus River, 75 young environmental leaders and changemakers convened for the inaugural five-day Youth Environmental Changemakers Summit, organized by The Starfish Canada, and hosted on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional territory of the Squamish Nation.
The first-of-its-kind gathering helped to fill a critical gap that has long existed in the Canadian youth environmental movement: the lack of in-person knowledge-sharing, skill-developing, and community-building events bringing together young environmental leaders and changemakers from coast to coast to coast.
Creating a Community of Collaboration, Care and Celebration
Speaking with the Lawson Foundation prior to the summit, Winnie Tam, The Starfish’s Executive Director, emphasized how momentous this gathering was, especially the in-person element, for her organization and the broader youth environmental movement in Canada, both of whom had largely been connected virtually over recent years.
“The purpose of bringing together a group of young changemakers from across the country in one place is to provide that community of care and support for each other. We recognize that so much of the burden of this work, climate action and environmental justice, has been carried by young people, and this labour is not without risks,” said Tam.
“So, the opportunity for young environmental leaders to be able to feel each other’s energy and presence and deepen their relationships is so important. This is the foundation of why we envisioned this summit.”
The summit was hosted at the Cheakamus Centre, intentionally chosen for its immersive natural location and close proximity to the Squamish First Nation, providing an ideal space for learning about environmental leadership through a decolonial, intersectional framework that highlighted the practices and values of Indigenous leadership and place-based knowledge.
The participants, who ranged in age from 14 to 30 years old, came together from all corners of the country, bringing with them an array of cultural backgrounds, personal stories, and professional experiences that, through five days of roundtable talks, panel discussions, outdoor activities, storytelling, and field trips to the Squamish First Nation Longhouse, cultivated a unique opportunity for meaningful relationship-building, networking, and knowledge-sharing.
This was aided by the impressive balance that the Starfish team achieved in providing well-organized, engaging, and thought-provoking programming while also leaving space around the margins of the agenda where participants benefited from the opportunity to connect and discuss their takeaways from all the newly shared experiences.
Tam spotlighted the intentionality around this as being very important during her interview. She shared that in their final huddle prior to the Summit, the Starfish Team had the opportunity to reflect on the environment they wanted to create for the participants during the summit, which was very much about “moving away from narratives around all the different individual achievements and credentials that brought you here and shifting towards a mindset that we’re here to create a community of collaboration, of care, and of celebration of our collective purpose in caring for the planet and all who live on it,” said Tam.
Together, We Are More Than The Sum of Our Parts
During her opening address of the summit, Tam emphasized these sentiments with all the participants, recognizing the unique environmental leadership journeys that had brought all 75 changemakers to Squamish but also encouraging the participants to see themselves as part of an ecosystem where all of their unique skills and experiences had an important role to play in the movement, sharing, “Together, we are more than the sum of our parts, and that’s what we want to celebrate here.”
Clearly, this principle was embraced by participants throughout the summit, who demonstrated an eagerness to embrace and seek out opportunities to speak with, ask questions of, and listen to one another’s experiences. This resulted not only in the growth of individual perspectives but also in the growth of the collective consciousness of the youth environmental movement.
Nowhere was this more evident than during the shared meals that took place in Cheakamus Environmental Learning Centre, where the composition of every table and subjects of all the conversations shared were different every single day.
The Joy and Relief of Connecting with Other Young Environmental Leaders
The Inaugural Youth Environmental Changemakers Summit provided a poignant reminder of just how important and impactful well-organized in-person gatherings can be, especially in terms of the ripple effects that they can have on those who attend. Research shows that young changemakers and leaders in the environmental movement often face a higher risk of burnout as they navigate education and work with their activism. This is paired with the general lack of resources to support their important initiatives and the emotional toll of climate anxiety.
As such, the importance of the feelings of joy, relief, and hope that many of the participants expressed cannot be overstated. They left Squamish not only better connected and more knowledgeable about environmental leadership but also feeling recharged with optimism and a renewed drive to continue their journeys stewarding a more sustainable future for our planet.
A conversation shared with two summit participants encapsulated this impact in action.
Juliana and Orla, students from different universities in Alberta both engaged in community climate initiatives who had never met before, traveled to Squamish feeling the weight of “the isolation of being a climate activist in Alberta,” yet found almost immediate excitement when they arrived at the summit and met each other as well as other participants from their province.
Juliana spoke to the hope and reassurance she felt being at the summit and seeing that “actually, there are so many people engaged in this work,” and looking forward to “going home feeling so refreshed.”
Orla, meanwhile, spoke to the incredible value she had found from having discussions about the roadblocks and speedbumps she was facing in her own environmental work, connecting with others and saying, “Here’s the thing I don’t know how to do,” and either find invaluable answers to her questions or reassurance that she wasn’t the only one experiencing these challenges.
A New Chapter Begins for The Starfish
Stories like these and the countless other inspiring experiences absorbed by the participants over the course of the gathering shine a spotlight on the tremendous work undertaken by the Starfish Team, without whose work none of this would have been possible.
As an organization that was almost entirely volunteer-run just six short years ago when its relationship with the Lawson Foundation first began, the successful coordination of this summit, from organizing the travel of 75 young individuals to Squamish to delivering five days of engaging programming, represents a significant achievement that filled a clear gap in the Canadian youth environmental movement and set a blueprint for future events of its kind.
Amanda Mayer