Cultivating Green Champions
Ecosource’s Cultivating Green Champions (CGC) program is designed to connect youth with natural spaces through environmental education and empower them as they take part in food-growing and restoration activities.
By joining this program, you will develop a knowledge base through educational workshops and stewardship opportunities across the Region of Peel and Haldimand County. Sessions will focus on expanding environmental technical skills, with topics such as sustainable urban agriculture, measuring water quality and native and invasive plant species. In addition, Indigenous teachings will be shared to expose you to Indigenous ways of knowing such as plants of Indigenous significance. Workshops will be delivered by Ecosource staff as well as project partners such as Eagle Spirits of the Great Waters and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.
As part of the program, you will also have the opportunity to participate in two one-week immersive learning experiences to apply knowledge learned and engage in hands-on reconciliation, restoration, and naturalization activities across select sites in the two regions. Activities may include knowledge sharing, native planting, and community gardening. These efforts will have tangible impacts on local food, watershed health and biodiversity!
You will also be given leadership training, support, and resources to implement action within your community to design and lead service-oriented environmental stewardship projects throughout the program. Overall, through workshops and service opportunities as well as implementing an action project, you have an opportunity to foster respectful relationships with the land and your communities.
The program is free and will take place virtually and in-person in the Region of Peel in accordance with COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Transportation to and from in-person locations will be provided and/or subsidized. This program will take place until December 2023 with most learning opportunities occurring from June to December 2023.
Eligibility Criteria
Participants must:
- Be at least 15 years of age upon starting participation in the program and no older than 30 years of age at time of application.
- Commit to dedicating a minimum of 120 hours of service through program activities (workshop attendance, independent learning, and community projects)
- Be a Canadian Citizen, permanent resident or a person who has been granted refugee status.
COVID-19 Considerations
The health and safety of our program participants is our top priority. This programming year, we will be offering a blend of virtual and in-person learning opportunities. Individual project planning will be informed by the latest public health advice and can include remote or virtual implementation. Health and safety training will be provided to all participants to ensure they understand how to protect themselves and others in the context of COVID-19. In-person stewardship opportunities will be offered to participants and will be implemented with COVID-19 health and safety protocols in place.
The Cultivating Green Champions program is funded by Canada Service Corps, a national movement that empowers youth aged 15–30 to gain experience and build important skills while giving back to their community. Learn more at Canada.ca/CanadaServiceCorps.
Click “Book Now” below to register
Please note: This registration process may take 10-20 minutes to complete and must be completed in one session. The session will time out after 10 minutes of inactivity. Youth under the age of 18 will be required to have parents or legal guardians sign the participant agreement form after completing the registration process.
Please make sure to review and sign the participant waiver form AFTER registering.
Responses to the demographics questions #18-33 in the registration form are anonymous and participants have the option to select “prefer not to answer” in various fields. The choice to participate in this survey will have no impact on eligibility for participation in the Cultivating Green Champions program. The anonymous results of these questions may be shared with our funder(s) to communicate program reach and impact as well as improve program effectiveness.
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