I play Amelia, the strong activist who thinks academia is overrated. I am like my character in a lot of ways.
I don't disrespect University students. I know that University has its benefits. I also know that University is not a prerequisite for creating environmental and social change. I have never gone to University, but have found myself in front of a Women's Studies class speaking about menstrual health.
I am the co-founder of an organization called Sustainable Cycles. We seek to educate and empower people to make healthy choices for their bodies, culture and environment. Our main focus at present is menstruation, but that is growing and evolving as we do. Check out www.sustainablecycles.ca to learn more!
Aside from the work we do at Sustainable Cycles, I also do my best to get involved with other local information and action based movements. Protecting the Earth that provides us with the basic fundamentals for life - water, food, medicine and shelter - is an important issue to me. It frustrates me to no end that the older generations have been sacrificing our health and our futures for the sake of money and growth.
Food is a major issue in terms of energy consumptions and CO2 emissions. Eating local and organic food is important. The finite resources involved in pesticide production, application, and large scale farming is not only energy intensive - it is destructive. Pesticides kill the flora and fauna the soil needs to produce, not to mention the contamination of water supplies. Permaculture is a valuable gardening method that I urge people to research and try. (Check out: permacultureprinciples.com/index.php) The fundamentals of permaculture can also be applied to our own lives too!
There are a lot of ways that we can change our lives to use less energy, reducing the demand for fossil fuels. (www.communitysolution.org/food.html) The tar sands in Alberta have been dubbed the worlds biggest environmental disaster. A press release for a local demonstration targeting suncor on peaceculture.org states:
"(for) every barrel of oil that is produced from tar sands extraction, 3-5 barrels of water are required, up to 60% of which can never be returned to the ecosystem and remains held in massive containment ponds the size of large lakes held back by dams, some of which are large enough in size to rival the Three Gorges Dam in China. Collecting that water requires major diversions from and massive pollution to the Athabasca River and local ecosystems."
This is especially frustrating, considering the water crisis we are facing. More than 1/6 of the world's population doesn't have access to safe drinking water. Maude Barlow does work regarding water issues, and has spoken in KW numerous times. (see www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=25 & www.canadians.org/about/Maude_Barlow/Blue_Covenant/index.html)
I hope that I have provided you with some inspiration and motivation. Change starts within.
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Rooted has been an inspiring and empowering force in my life.
I have written a rap! It goes like this:
Wake up wake up
Wake up wake up
Wake up wake up
Wake up wake up (soft and echo-ie)
Wake up from these lies,
You've lain asleep for to long.
The nothingness you seek,
It can't go on.
Mother Earth is strong.
When we're all gone,
She'll still live on.
But we can't go,
On and on and on and on and on:
Living life without loving,
Kissing without hugging,
Forgetting about the children,
If we do our progyny will be suffering.
Wake up wake up.....
If you think that shit isn't so bad,
You must be mad.
If you think that shit is so bad,
than be glad.
Glad for the power of realization and change.
The mysteries of the Universe may seem strange,
But you've got to believe it to see it,
You've got to breathe in to be here,
Or your thoughts just won't be clear,
And you won't be able to hear
The messages of the Earth:
The cycles of death and rebirth,
life, death, rebirth.
Wake up Wake up....
That's all for now folks! There will be more I'm sure.
Root on!
Lauren
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