TOP ROW (left to right): Nadine Raynolds (instructor), Brenda Beckwith (instructor), Isabel Slone, Katherine Connolly, Adwitya Das Gupta, Angharad Wylie (Iggi), Chris Hildreth, Kate Mason, Vanessa Minke-Martin, Caitlin Frame, Kevin Green, Ryan Hilperts (instructor).
BOTTOM ROW (left to right): Carley Coccola, Andrea Zittlau, Victoria Reed, Shannon MacDonald, Julia Bennett, Julia Berry, Nikki Sanchez-Hood, Susie Vanderhoeven, Ella Rebalski.
2011 Action Projects
Through journaling, group discussion, feedback sessions, workshops, and mentorship, each student develops an action plan to implement in their community. Here are the plans of the 2011 class:
Julia Bennett, Mapping Environmental Initiatives
Julia's action project aims
to strengthen the environmental community at the University of Victoria through
community green mapping of undergraduate environmental initiatives. Julia hopes
to improve coordination, communication, and connections between undergraduate
environmental groups on campus and to increase student awareness and involvement
in these groups and initiatives. The process of community mapping will
help build community and a sense of place, and the map will be a tool for
environmental groups as well as other students at the University of Victoria.
Julia Berry, Community Composting
Julia plans to start a
community composting program for her apartment building, which currently has no
means of composting organic waste. Julia's vision for the project is to create
an outdoor space for residents, facilitating a relationship with the land
on which they live by appropriately dealing with organic waste and
personally returning nutrients to the soil. The goal of the project is to build
a stronger community with the residents in the building and to reduce the
amount of waste going to the Hartland Landfill. Since backyard composters have
a limited capacity, she hopes to use a company to pick up the remaining organic
waste.
Carley Coccola, Valuing the Community Garden
Carley's project is
centered around the University of Victoria's Campus Community Garden (CCG). Carley will
produce a Cost Benefit Analysis report which will serve as both a resource for
the CCG's executive and the university administration.
The report will assess the garden in terms of food production, student
involvement, potential for networking, opportunities for carbon sequestering,
and community building. The aim of the report is to help CCG
executives determine the direction for the garden as well as assist the administration
in understanding the value and potential of the site so it will be maintained well
into the future.
Katherine Connolly, Integrative Medicine
Katherine plans to expose
the myths about naturopathy and create a well-rounded knowledge base for those
interested in alternative forms of medicine. After experiencing different
methods ranging from meditation to acupuncture, Katherine will publish entries in
her school's newspaper and in a blog. She will attempt to generate a dialogue
between her readers as well as connections between practitioners and community
members, and create an online resource centre. Believing that the first step to
change is knowledge, Katherine hopes that by documenting her own experiences,
she will encourage others to step outside their comfort zones and try natural remedies.
Caitlin Frame, Food Security & Community Building
Caitlin's action project
aims to address food security and community building in the cities of White
Rock and Surrey, British Columbia. She will conduct formative research to understand the needs of
the area's agricultural producers and distributers as well as its consumers. Through meeting with farmers, restaurant and store owners, farmers market
participants, and relevant organizations, she hopes to cultivate a network of
community members who are concerned about the politics of food. Informed
by the findings of Caitlin's research, this network could take on action
projects to increase food security and promote local food initiatives in the
area.
Kevin Green, Engaging Primary Schools with Outdoor Education
Kevin's action project aims
to bring more local, nature-based, outdoor education programming to elementary
school classrooms. The mass movement of human populations to urban centres over
the past century has moved us away from living in and with nature in a
harmonious way. Research is now pointing to a wide range of physical and mental
health consequences of separating ourselves from nature. A number of developmental problems in
children have been attributed to the lack of free play in nature. Kevin's
community action project strives to get grade 5 and 6 students outside for
curriculum-linked programming to foster lifelong nature values, mitigate potential
health effects, and most of all, have fun!
Adwitya Das Gupta, Waterloo Student Food Cooperative
Adwitya's action project aims
to create a student food cooperative at the University of Waterloo. The
Waterloo Student Food Cooperative will be built on the principle of
community‐based food security, with the goals of food sufficiency, nutrition,
and access. It will view food as a nexus to bring people together, share
resources, and create the kind of strong community and financial support that bring
student initiatives to life. Adwitya's project will follow the principles found
in most consumer co-op models. By engaging students directly, the Waterloo
Student Food Cooperative will establish a common vision, sense of community,
and spirit of charity.
Chris Hildreth, Expose the Issues
Chris hopes to build a
non-profit program called Expose the
Issues. Expose the Issues will provide a starting point for young people
who share a sense of urgency about environmental issues. The program will
facilitate participants' motivation to start taking action, develop their public
speaking skills, and create positive change in them and others. Chris
wants to take small groups on two-week experiential educational trips to gain
first-hand insight into critical environmental issues. Groups will document
their experience and travel to places such as plastic island, the oil sands,
and slaughterhouses. The trips will bring global environmental issues to a
personal level.
Shannon MacDonald, Schoolyard Ecology & the Rebirth of Natural History
Shannon plans to develop
and implement an experiential, place-based education program to provide
children with a healthy, hands-on place to play, learn, and develop a genuine
respect for nature and each other. Over the past couple of years, Shannon
has been working with naturalist communities across Nova Scotia. She wants to
bring their local knowledge of natural history and ecology to the elementary
schoolyards in Halifax. The program will be made up of two components: a
guided, natural-history walk around the schoolyard followed by a reflection
session.
Kate Mason, Chefs to the Field Muskoka
Kate plans to hold a Feast of Fields in her home
bioregion of Muskoka. The main attraction at this event will be a Chefs'
Competition, highlighting the region's talented chefs and producers. The event
will also feature workshops, for both children and adults, and a large community
map of local producers. With all guests wearing a "My nearest local
producer is..." nametag, she hopes to create more dialogue about local food in
her area as well as foster stronger community ties. The main goals of this
event, which will hopefully become an annual initiative, are to increase
awareness about local food and local food security as well as to build
community.
Vanessa Minke-Martin, Valuing the Grand River
Vanessa's action project
aims to engage people in discussions about the cultural history, ecology, and
conservation of the Grand River watershed in southwestern Ontario. Through
conversation-based activities, including community mapping of a local portion
of the watershed, she will encourage local residents to reconsider the river as
a cultural and ecological focal point for Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge.
These conversations will educate residents about local conservation issues
while exploring the significant role of the Grand River in the lives of the
people in the region. Ultimately, the project will build bridges between
individuals of all ages and knowledge levels, while cultivating a stronger
connection between people and place.
Ella Rebalski, Meal Mapping
Ella will address issues of
food security and rural development through the creation of a community
map. She will work with different organizations to gather data, then
create a map of the ingredients that go into popular meals in order to draw
awareness to where the food we eat comes from. Ella hopes that the
map will get participants to think more about what goes into the meals that
they enjoy most. She also hopes the map-making process will create
awareness about our reliance on the industrial food system, and how we can take
action against it.
Victoria Reed, A Tour of the Industrial Food System
Victoria will host a family
supermarket tour and a local/organic food luncheon in her home community north
of Kingston, Ontario. The tour will educate participants, particularly young
families with children ages 10 to 13, about the industrial food system and the
alternatives that exist in the area. Following the tour, local and organic food
will be provided in accordance with discussions led by several local experts on
food issues. Victoria hopes to educate and empower young families about their
food and consumption patterns and give them the resources they need to
investigate these topics further.
Nikki Sanchez-Hood, Viva-Free: Economic Revisioning
Nikki's plan is a two-part
initiative to reduce waste, curtail excessive consumption, and promote true
wealth through strengthening community. Her goal is to ignite a critical
re-examination of the true cost of consumption habits while providing a forum
for people to create genuine wealth through social capital and community. Part
one of the initiative is a recycling exchange on the University of Victoria
campus that will make it accessible and rewarding to donate material goods
rather than dispose of them. Part two is a community event based around a
free market that also connects people through food, art, music, and dialogue.
Isabel Slone, Is Fashion a Friend or Foe?
Isabel's community action
project seeks to address the intertwined pleasures and problems of the fashion
industry. An aspiring fashion editor, Isabel finds many aspects of the industry
problematic from feminist and environmental perspectives. Although fashion
creates visually compelling garments that can be viewed as art, it also continues to perpetuate the oppression of certain groups of women and is
responsible for a great deal of environmental pollution. To encourage
critical dialogue about these issues, Isabel will produce an issue of her own
fashion magazine, PLANT.
Susie Vanderhoeven, Let's GUT Together
Susie's action project will
address the need to create community among those affected by inflammatory
bowel disease (IBD). She will organize and facilitate a community-building
event to bring together people from the University of Waterloo and Wilfred
Laurier University who are affected by IBD. The event may serve as a stepping stone
for getting more youth involved in the local chapter of the Crohn's and Colitis
Foundation of Canada (CCFC) and other related efforts designed to help people affected by
IBD.
Angharad (Iggi) Wylie, Montreal Alternative Food Systems Directory
Angharad's plan is to
create a comprehensive directory of organizations, projects, businesses, and
other groups that contribute to the sustainable food movement in Montreal. The
directory will document the present state of alternative food systems in
Montreal, provide a list of contacts to facilitate collaboration between
currently existing groups, and act as a resource for people who want to engage
with the local sustainability movement in a way that is beneficial to their
community and their personal well-being. Angharad's directory will also serve
as a celebration of successful initiatives.
Andrea Zittlau, Putting the Community Back in Community Garden
Andrea plans to create a
volunteer program for the University of Victoria's Campus Community Garden
(CCG). The garden recently secured on-going funding as well as a larger site,
removing many of the barriers which has held it back from reaching its full
potential as a community hub, educational resource, and organic food production
space. As the CCG grows, engaging volunteer opportunities will be essential not
only to support the organization, but to meet the needs of the larger campus
community. Through this action project, Andrea hopes to build the foundation
for a more dynamic community garden that empowers students to move toward a
more food secure society.