Please note, all participants will receive a confirmation email from TicketTailor with a link to join the meetings on Zoom. All registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and the presentation slides following each session for 60 days.
Environmentalists tend to be well-meaning, forward-thinking people who believe in preserving the planet for generations to come. Environmental organizations will advocate for reusable cups, circular economy, zero-waste, conservation and the protection of animals and their rights; but are often hesitant or completely invisible when it comes to advocating for social justice and the lives of Indigenous, Black, racialized and otherwise marginalized peoples.
This learning series seeks to examine the ways the fight against systemic racism/for social justice and environmentalism are linked. We will explore and contextualize our understanding of racism within environmentalism and the environmental movement in Canada, and seek to look for solutions and build the tools necessary to create just futures for our human and non-human kin.
During the first session, participants will be given a brief overview of the history of race and racism in a Canadian context, before then diving into shared terminology, defining terms like systemic racism. Participants will then be introduced to the tool, antiracism, and how it can be implemented successfully.
During the second session, participants will be introduced to the concept of utopian authoritarianism and the importance of being able to work with and integrate multiple forms of knowledge and worldviews. Participants will be introduced to the tool, the triplicity of space, and how it can be implemented successfully.
During the third session, participants will learn how to build equitable spaces of engagement by learning about the different kinds of spaces that they can organize and hold (the tool). Participants will also be introduced to a successful spaces policy.
The final session will feature a recontextualisation of racism and systemic racism within the context of environmental spaces and the environmental movement. Participants will then be given a tool, environmental justice, through which participants can ensure that actions taken to protect the environment are just, and how it can be implemented successfully.
Our Presenter:
Proudly Franco-Albertan, Chúk is passionate about the ways in which the environment impacts human health and the role of justice in our understanding of how our societies function. As a result of this passion, Chúk is very active in changemaking spaces in both Canada and at an international scale. His educational background centres the domains of environment science, chemistry, public health and medical geography. His career has focused on environmental and climate justice and outside formal work settings, he is involved in several boards, committees, conferences and movements to reimagine and recreate societal structures and systems for the well-being of all of our kin. Human and non-human. He has recently started a new role as the Consulting Director of Impact Evaluation at the Tamarack Institute Learning Centre.
Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101
Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.
Session 2: Positionality
ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.
Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101
Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.
Session 4: Building Better Relations
ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector
Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.
Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance
A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.
Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.
Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships
This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.
Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector
Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector
Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector
Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector
Cost: Free
Chúk Odenigbo
Proudly Franco-Albertan, Chúk is passionate about the ways in which the environment impacts human health and the role of justice in our understanding of how our societies function. As a result of this passion, Chúk is very active in changemaking spaces in both Canada and at an international scale. His educational background centres the domains of environment science, chemistry, public health and medical geography. His career has focused on environmental and climate justice and outside formal work settings, he is involved in several boards, committees, conferences and movements to reimagine and recreate societal structures and systems for the well-being of all of our kin. Human and non-human. He has recently started a new role as the Consulting Director of Impact Evaluation at the Tamarack Institute Learning Centre.
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