It’s Getting Hot In Here

Two of our very own colleagues were recognized by the World Conservation Union for their perservering work on climate change today, International Women’s Day.

Rosa Kouri, National Director of the Sierra Youth Coalition and Virginie Lavallée-Picard, Organizer with SustainUS are among the prestigious slew of women recognized today. The recognition is extended to 23 women around the world who are working on the pressing issue of climate change.

“At 23 years old, Rosa has already been involved in the environmental movement for over 10 years. A longtime member of the Sierra Youth Coalition (a national environmental organization and the youth arm of the Sierra Club of Canada), Rosa is a tireless spokesperson and advocate for young people. She firmly believes that youth deserve the power to help shape the world in which they live.

While at McGill University, she founded the Sustainable McGill Project, which continues to engage students, university staff and administration in improving the level of sustainability at the university. Now the director of the Sierra Youth Coalition, Rosa continues to find new opportunities to inspire and inform youth about their role in fighting climate change.

For the past two years, the organization has sent youth delegates to international climate change conferences (12th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Nairobi and 11th in Montreal) and provided them with the training and support to make an impact. When asked why youth are at the forefront of this struggle, Rosa explains that “youth comprise a majority of the world’s population, and they will feel the impacts of flooding, droughts, disease, lack of food security, and other effects of climate change. And more and more youth have realized what is at stake”.

Rosa attended the 12th Conference of the Parties in Montreal and played a key role as an organizer of youth delegates from around the world. She led a “Bed-In for the Climate”, a public theatre demonstration that made news around the world, including Reuters and the New York Times. She has a deep passion for the arts and works this into her climate work as creatively and often as possible. She is known for saying, “The goal of the revolutionary artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”

She is also a founding member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, a broad-based coalition of youth-driven organizations which have come together to encourage the Canadian government to take meaningful action on climate change.

Rosa is fearless, informed and devastatingly articulate. Her educational background is an Honours degree in Economics and Political Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is fluent in French and English, and, as she is keenly aware of the broader implications of climate change, she works to incorporate social and economic dimensions into climate policy. She is not afraid to take a stand and speak out against those whom she believes are not doing their part to tackle problems such as climate change.”

“Virginie Lavallee-Picard is an amazing person, senior at College of the Atlantic and majoring in Human Ecology, in addition to being a Davis scholarship recipient who has studied in multiple places.She is avidly concentrating on international and environmental studies, specifically working in depth on the relationship between global politics and climate change. By being active in both the college’s local-organic farm and a key member of Sustain US, in addition to her internship with the Mesoamerican Permaculture Reference Center in Guatemala,

Virginie is focusing on sustainable agricultural practices and slow foods in conjunction with international policy. Through this she hopes that reducing food mileage can also reduce both green house gas emissions and the dependence on fossil fuels. As part of her dedication to the issue of climate change, Virginie traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, last winter as a youth representative in the 2nd Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, and the 12th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Here she met with delegates, examined the issues, and applied all she had learned through her studies leading up to this event.

Virginie is constantly finding new ways in which she can educate and enthuse others about climate change opportunities, from attending conferences on climate change, to filming documentary videos on the issue, to being an active part in COA’s mission to be carbon neutral by 2015. On top of all of this, she is a priceless asset as a person, one who will go out into the world and make a difference. Virginie is an inspiration to all around her as a shining example of what you can do if you put enough effort into it.”

Congratulations to these incredible women!