Canadian Wildlife Federation expanding programs to engage youth

The Canadian Wildlife Federation is expanding two programs to offer youth further opportunity to explore and connect with the wild.

The recently launched Wild Outside program is designed to connect teens aged 15 to 18 with the outdoors with the aim of developing conservation initiatives in their hometowns.

The Canadian Conservation Corps targets those aged 18 to 30 and aims to help participants gain hands-on conservation experience and the opportunity to connect with CWF partners across the country.

Wild Outside — a free program — launched earlier this month in Charlottetown, Halifax, Calgary and Toronto. 

"We just want to get youth excited about nature and conservation," said Irene MacAulay, Charlottetown's youth leadership specialist with the federation. "For those youth that are already excited about nature and conservation we want to give them the tools to make an impact."

'Creative' problem solving

The plan is to spread the program to 16 more cities and more than 1,000 young Canadians this year.

"Starting off we're going to be doing some pretty regular conservation projects like making bat houses and doing litter cleanups," she said.

We want to give them like an outlet for all this stress and anxiety about climate change.— Irene MacAulay, Canadian Wildlife Federation

Then participants will have the opportunity to connect with climate leaders in the region to see what particular organizations are looking for, MacAulay said.

"It'll be like a collaboration between like maybe scientists who actually know what is going on and youth who can see creative ways to fix problems."

She said there will be skating, biking and kayaking available to participants. For Charlottetown, she said the group is looking for 10 to 15 participants.

"Bigger cities have bigger groups," she said.

Stress over climate change?

MacAulay said more people are spending time on cellphones and less time outside and at the same time are becoming "more and more stressed out about the environment."

"We want to give them like an outlet for all this stress and anxiety about climate change," she said.

The Wild Outside program requires participants to dedicate 120 hours over a year. MacAulay said the program wants to hold onto participants as long as possible, but people can take part for shorter periods of time.

MacAulay was part of the Canadian Conservation Corps program earlier this year and through that she decided to take on her role with the Wild Outside program.

"We did a sea-kayaking adventure in Tofino. That was a big part of the conservation corps, that was 10 days," she said.

She said after that the group spread out across Canada for various projects. Some went to the Yukon to study salmon spawning.

"I got to go to Peterborough where I worked at a conservation day camp all summer," she said.

The two CWF-lead programs are funded through the federal government's Canada Service Corps.

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