Youth leading change

For students and graduates of the Environment, Sustainability and Society (ESS) program, inspiring and empowering others doesn’t begin and end at Dal’s doors.

On December 1, as part of the annual ESS Lecture Series, the College of Sustainability brought together  current ESS students and alumni, as well as graduates of the RBC Sustainability Leadership Certificate program (SLC), to discuss their latest projects and experiences.

Sprouting success

Panelist Sarah Aspinall, a fourth-year ESS and Environmental Science student originally from Oakville, Ontario, is the co-founder and research and development director of Let's Sprout. It’s an initiative that facilitates workshops for young girls, providing spaces for them to improve leadership skills, discuss values, and reflect on their personal connections to nature.

In 2015, Aspinall signed up to complete the RBC Sustainability Leadership Certificate, which is when she met Siobhan Takala and other students who helped develop Let’s Sprout.

"I wanted to be able to give to other girls the opportunity to explore their connection to the environment and explore the things they cared about and know that they have the capability to make change in whatever way they want to do it," says Aspinall.

Takala, executive director of Let's Sprout, loves being able to share a sense of power and possibility with youth. "We're not empowering anyone; we're just creating spaces so that they can empower themselves and realize those capacities," she says.

The growth and success of the program has surprised its founders, who had not anticipated it becoming an ongoing project. Aspinall says they plan on launching a website in the near future.

"Now, Let's Sprout is at a point where we're starting to think about getting bigger and doing bigger things, which is really exciting and terrifying at the same time."

Enterprising eats

Other ESS students have been empowering community members in some very tasty ways.

Panellist Rob MacNeish, another RBC SLC graduate and an ESS and International Development Studies student nearing completion of his degree, has recently been hired as the garden coordinator for the Dartmouth North Community Food Centre.

MacNeish had previously studied at Dalhousie, but left without completing his degree. When he returned to school a few years later, now a parent, he discovered Dal's newly-formed College of Sustainability.

"The multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary approach was really great," says MacNeish. "I needed to be doing sustainability work while I was learning about sustainability."

MacNeish became involved in local food-related initiatives, helping to revitalize the urban gardens on campus and working on the nearby Common Roots urban farm. The experience led him to his new job at the Dartmouth North Community Food Centre.

The food centre, opened in 2015, is only the sixth of its kind in Canada. The centre serves community meals twice a week, offers cooking classes and community garden plots, and provides "food access" markets to offset local food deserts.

"It's a new approach to food security," says MacNeish. "It's kind of acknowledging that our food system is damaged and broken in a number of ways, which often results in people not getting the food they need."

The future is looking bright for the food centre, which has just received a $100,000 grant from the national Aviva Community Fund.

MacNeish described how community members who use the food centre are given the opportunity to use their new skills and knowledge to help others.

"They grow food not only for themselves, through the community plots, but also growing food for their community and strangers, which is another level of empowerment."

Leading with passion

Other panel members included ESS graduates Emma Norton, energy coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, and Joanna Brenchley, a researcher and facilitator with the Halifax CoLab team. George Woodhouse (Dal alumnus), the evening’s extremely entertaining moderator, is currently a Youth Engagement Officer with Parks Canada in Halifax.

Each panelist ended the discussion with an answer to the question of what gives them hope and motivation in their pursuits. Many expressed an appreciation of the friends, family and coworkers in their lives.

"When you care about the environment and you care about people, it's very overwhelming," says Aspinall. "You feel like you want to fix all of the things in one day, and you can't. Especially not by yourself. For me, what really keeps me going is connecting with other people who are really passionate about what they're doing."

The Winter ESS Lecture Series kicks off Thursday night (January 12) with a film screening ofFractured Land, which profiles Caleb Behn, a young Dene lawyer who may become one of this generation’s great leaders. The film how to reconcile the fractures within himself, his community and the world around him, blending modern tools of the law with ancient wisdom. The screening will feature a Skype discussion with Behn.

For more information on the Winter ESS Lecture Series, including the full schedule, visit the College of Sustainability website.