Five environmentally-minded, inner-city youth, sponsored by the Yonge Street Mission and Banyan Youth, traveled to Washington, D.C. for a green conference in March.
PowerShift 2009 focused on creating green jobs, sustainable energy use, and building enthusiasm among a new generation of environmentalists. As members of the St. James Town youth council, the teens hope to promote environmental projects in their impoverished Toronto neighbourhood.
“To tell you the truth, I thought this was going to be just like what I expect from any conference—lots of talk about what we can do but no initiative towards making it happen,” said Gabilan Sivapatham, 16. She was pleasantly surprised. “We were taught that turning to green energy was not the first step towards a healthier environment. Instead we need to reduce first, because our energy consumption will not be covered by 100 per cent green energy.”
For Jiawen Zhou,15, the event was an opportunity to bring enthusiasm and creativity back to local youth in Canada, and to gather new ideas for grassroots initiatives.
“At first, we can start small by doing things like Earth Hour and once we get going with the Mayor’s Tower Renewal Project, we can make it even bigger,” she said. “It’ll be great if we can be the most-eco friendly community in Toronto!”
The Tower Renewal Project, backed by Toronto mayor David Miller, is a plan to retrofit many of city’s concrete high-rise apartment buildings, cutting their energy requirements by half. Apartments built in the 1950s, 60s and 70s are found in many neglected but densely populated areas of the city, including St. James Town. Two of the community’s towers are slated to be among the first in the project, which could create job opportunities for local youth.
“In the future, I truly hope to transform St. James Town through the use of green energy sources,” said Sivapatham. “We have one of the highest numbers of high-rise buildings in such a small space, so if the top of each building was to be covered with solar panels, for example, or green space, we would surely see a reduction in the amount of energy used.”
The council was created in September 2008 and is part of a larger shift in the work of Yonge Street Mission. In response to changing demographics in the downtown core and growing poverty in some suburban areas, YSM is seeking to partner with other organizations and train local leaders who work in their neighbourhoods as satellite missions. The St. James youth network is the first of five satellite missions YSM plans to launch by 2012.
