Marching to the tunes of The Carnival Band, the Windermere Grade 11 leadership class led a troop of students and community members down Commercial Drive for Earth Day.
For a few minutes on Monday, business operators and café goers paused their conversations to gaze from shop windows at roughly 100 people marching from the base of the Drive to Grandview Park. The parade was a four-month project organized by 22 students from the leadership class at Windermere secondary school who invited speakers like Ta’Kaiya Blaney and David Suzuki.
Student Brendan Tong, who is also a member of Youth for Climate Justice Now, towed a windmill made out of pop cans strewn with chicken wire.
“We’re participating in Earth Day to get out the message that there is global climate change happening, pretty much you can see around that there is things that are not really right with the world. You can see that we’re pretty much in spring but it’s still raining, and really cold.”
Under the guidance of instructor Vagner Castillo, the Grade 11 students study sustainability and are continuing the Earth Day tradition that started four years ago.
Kyle Fong was one of the three helpers who dressed in dinosaur costumes and rode bicycles with banners reading, “Dinosaurs against fossil fuels.” Before helping out the Grade 11 class, Fong, who is in Grade 10 was a skeptic of climate change.
“I didn’t really believe in it actually, because it doesn’t seem real. But now, through Earth Day, I can learn a lot through the booths and everyone around me.”
For another leadership class student, Mark Manangan, the recent disaster left by Typhoon Haiyan hit close to home and prompted him to help organize the parade.
“The third world countries definitely are getting affected by the first world countries which is not fair. For example, the Philippines — the big typhoon that happened there — I don’t think the Philippines [did] anything to cause this big typhoon but it’s more countries that cause it.”
One of the guest speakers at the rally was 13-year-old North Van resident Ta’Kaiya Blaney, originally from Silammon First Nation north of Powell River. She highlighted some of the challenges she’s seen in her community. “Growing up with my nation and knowing of the salmon runs, where the salmon don’t return and seeing the environmental impact in my nation that’s preventing my generation from learning our language and practising our own culture.”
Looking out from her booth at the crowd, Leanne Toderian, a member of Canadian Union of Public Employees B.C., reminisced about her own efforts to participate in environmental campaigns.
“I was that young activist when I was 15, 16, 17 years old. I was the one out there at Carmanah Valley and Stein Valley. These are people who take a look around themselves and they’re not on their laptops, they’re not on their iPads, looking around and they’re saying this is our future, this is our home, this is our planet, so we need to take care of it.”
Jennypeng@gmail.com
twitter.com/jennypengnow
