Canadians are famous for volunteering. Many of us have decided to dedicate our time to volunteer work, including projects that help people to ‘greenify’ our environment.
I joined my school’s recycling club in kindergarten, the beginning of my future career as an environmentalist at my middle school. I started caring more about the environment after I learned about the horrendous side effects of not caring. One moment in life that really made me think twice about changing the world was a trip to India when I saw a three-legged monkey staring at a banana peel by the side of the road. This made me sad that some countries are so undeveloped that they can’t dispose of their garbage properly. So, after I came back, I started a charity drive that I like to call the ‘Jean Green Drive’. I gather old, used jeans, and sometimes even new ones, to donate to the impoverished people in India to raise awareness about global poverty and the importance of recycling clothes. The Jean Green Drive gives to the unfortunate, and it is green because it reuses clothing for others.
As I grew up, I joined local environmental organisations in my town to get hands-on experience in helping the environment. The first organisation I joined was Willow Park Ecology Centre, located in Norval, Ontario, which really helped me to love nature. This is a park where the community of Norval and others can explore healthy gardens and ponds to see what they look like without their archenemies: the invasive species.
The second organisation I decided to join was POWER (Protect Our Water and Environmental Resources), a not-for-profit organisation that encourages youth to raise international awareness through organisations like UNICEF and UNESCO. POWER promotes biodiversity worldwide with conferences that raise awareness about the side effects of not caring for the planet.
I am proud to be a Canadian environmentalist. I firmly beleive in the phrase, ‘try to become the change you want to see in this world!’ Get out into nature and make your very own environmental discoveries!
Volume 1 Issue 12
