This blog is an archived post written by Aliya during her 3rd year in the Environmental Management stream.
This past month, FES successfully hosted our annual Change Your World Conference. I was honoured to have been selected to assist in planning this huge event as the Student Conference Coordinator. I was able to see first hand the ins and outs of event planning and how coming together as a community can shape positive change for the environment.
I started planning for Change Your World (CYW) in the summer of 2018. Some of my tasks included brainstorming ideas for the event such as swag (giveaways) and potential workshops that organizations could run. I did a lot of research on organizations in the GTA and around Canada that ran workshops to educate students on ongoing social and environmental issues.
Also, I got to work more closely with the conference coordinator, Lily Piccone. Lily has worked here for many years - planning events like Change Your World and working Recruitment and Communications teams. She was the very first person I met when I attended the same conference in 2016! Yup, that’s right! I attended CYW when I was in grade 12 and it was what really pushed me into learning more about how I can make a difference in my community and the environment. If it wasn’t for Lily and her empowering attitude to change the world, I wouldn’t have been so motivated to do the same. For me, Change Your World motivated me to apply to the Environmental Studies program at York.
So, years after my first Change Your World experience and a few months of e-mails, brainstorming, researching and organizing, finally the day we had all been waiting for had arrived.
Thursday, October 11, 2018: Change Your World Conference 2018
The day was sunny and bright with a fresh crispnesss in the air- that right in the middle of fall kind of day where you knew it was a perfect time to change the world! The Change Your World team of volunteers included Environmental Studies staff and students. We all have one thing in common: the burning desire to turn visions into actions and get things done. After a short and quick meeting with Lily about how the day was going to play out, we hurried into our roles as we already has schools arriving by the bus loads! The CYW team was so excited to see everything finally put into place and to have guests arriving. As a team of volunteers, we wore really cool CYW t-shirts and walked around like the cool kids squad everyone wanted to be!
Opening ceremonies began with a welcome from our new Dean Alice Horvorka and a keynote address from Sara Escallion Sotomayor, a TDSB student advocate. After Sara's address, she was joined on stage with two other students, Indigo Arscott and Rayne Fisher Ouann. The panel discussed the most pressing issues for youth in Ontario, such as the change in the sex-ed curriculum, activism, and speaking out for what you feel is right.
Students then followed their name tags and proceeded to their respective workshops. Each student was able to attend three hands- on environmental and social justice focused workshops as part of the conference. While assisting students to their workshop sessions, I was so pleased to hear the exciting and inquisitive comments from high school students: “Forestry Ontario! Am I going to plant trees?” and “What does fashion have to do with the environment?”. In my head, I thought that was exactly what I was thinking when I attended the conference only a couple years back. This conference and all the different workshop options is what made me truly understand that the environment is anything from the world around us to the very bodies we inhabit.
For all three workshops, I was the student ambassador for the 3% Project, which provides youth-friendly and holistic education on climate change while empowering youth to take action on solving climate change in their local communities today.
Steve Lee, who is the main organizer for the 3% project, is someone I worked with in the past when I helped to organize the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals training at York, so it was really nice seeing a familiar face. Steve gave a presentation about what climate change is, its effects and how we can go about mitigating them by starting in our very own communities. The presentation was informative and enticing. Although I had to listen to it three times that day for each workshop, I never got bored of it.
At lunch time, the connection to my first CYW experience really hit me! With the smell of pizza in the air and a line-up wraping around Vari Hall, 1000 students waited for their turn for lunch and were chattering about what they had learned in their first two workshops. As I watched them, I thought back to when I attended CYW- how good the pizza tasted, how friendlly everyone was around me and all the cool things I was so eager to do and share with my friends. At the end of lunch, as everyone was making it to their final session, I was so happy to see everyone walking around with pink Environmental Studies reusable cups which I picked out for our giveaway in the summer! These cups are super cool, reusable, BPA free plastic, and colour changing with cold beverages. I may be biased, but let's just say the were totally poppin'!
For closing ceremonies, Steve Lee from the 3% Project gave the final speech and left everyone motivated to change the world. Each school was trained on the how to implement an action project at their school and (we hope) will work with the 3% project team to make those projects happen. To end it all, Lily shared the Faculty's thank-yous and closing remarks. She ended it off with a little trivia, cheering and giveaways that got everyone up and off their chairs!
At the end of the day as the kids packed up and went back home, I thought about how among those 1000 students that attended, maybe there was one just like me. Or maybe there will be more than just one! Hopefully there were students who finally realized what they were passionate about and finally knew that they wanted to make a difference in the world but never really knew how.
For me, my goals for change all started with attending that one conference and applying to the Environmental Studies program and York University.
To all the students who attended the conference that day, or maybe a couple years back or even will attend in the future, just know that it’s never too late to turn your visions into actions and change the world around you.
