Youth4Water's work recognized

October 25, 2008.
On Friday October 24th, Youth4Water got the chance to present at Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s first ever public Annual General Meeting.

Tenants as well as other observers from around Toronto were invited to the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, where Youth4Water got the chance to present its group’s mandate and also get informally recognized for our work.

Pia and I presented a short but detailed history, objectives and goals of Youth4Water alongside other panel guest presenters such as S.O.S. (Save Our Structures), the Lawrence Heights Community Gardens initiative and Reclaiming Our Space.

We also got the opportunity to speak about what youth engagement meant for our group and explain the impact we wanted to create in our communities concerning the plight for access to safe drinking water. We got the opportunity to connect with a few youth as well as other presenters who provided us with helpful suggestions, potential further contacts for the future and support for our movement.

The night’s challenge lay in conveying our message with the time limit pressed on us, but thanks to our supports and the rehearsals we attended, the night progressed extremely smoothly. To end, Youth4Water would like to share with you an insightful and powerful speech we quoted from during our presentation at the Annual General Meeting.

Below is a link to Severn Suzuki’s inspirationally fresh and wisely spoken speech that still resonates today! At the time, Severn Suzuki, who is David Suzuki’s daughter and who delivered the speech at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio Centro, Brazil, was only 9 years old!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZsDliXzyAY

- Shire Brandi

Welcome Walkerton!

October 24, 2008

We went to Walkerton on a mission to reach out to youth beyond Toronto. I say mission accomplished. It was a long journey but fun and productive at the same time. Thanks to Lauren’s great driving skills and Melanie’s top notch navigational skills we got there at the right time; I wasn’t much of a help hahaha (embarrassed laugh).

On the way there all three of us saw something beautiful, even scenic. On the flat lands of the rural country side just a few hours away from Toronto we saw countless numbers of windmills. As far as the eyes can see and never too boring to look at again and again, the windmills blended in so well to its surrounding environment never compromising the beautiful scenery. The journey to Walkerton seemed so right.

When we got there we were embraced by Bruce, our main contact in Walkerton. He led us to our seats in the local high school gym filled with people from Walkerton and neighboring communities all there in support for the environment. Debi & Brandon, the mom and son that created the climate change event did an outstanding and successful job and deserve much applause for their great work. What can I say about Bruce, he was with us since day one and without his support and dedication I believe the collaboration with Walkerton wouldn’t have gone through. Bruce as well deserves much applause for his great work. I would also like to acknowledge the mayor of Brockton, Charlie Bagnato for offering his continual support after all it was Bruce and Charlie that our group met first when we first went to Walkerton.

The youth that came after the event looked like a group of youth not to be reckoned with. What a story these young people have - one that can captivate any audience. I believe Canada still has much to learn from Walkerton especially from its youth. To all the participants that came to the meeting after, if you are reading this thank you for coming and taking an interest we look forward to working if you very soon.

I had a lot of fun and it was totally worth it

- Jae Kim