The pandemic has forced youth climate activists to get creative

**Editor's note: Since this was written we are seeing people take to the streets in large numbers once again, despite the pandemic, protesting anti-black racism and police violence – following the killing of George Floyd.

Last September's global climate strikes united roughly six million people around the globe. 

In Winnipeg alone, more than 10,000 people showed up for the march on September 27, inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. Many of them were students.

However, the pandemic has put a stop to those kinds of mass gatherings, and is forcing youth climate activists to get creative in how they organize.

One example is how some young people in Winnipeg adapted this spring. Instead of holding an outdoor mass protest, originally scheduled for April 24, they took to the airwaves that same day. They shared an hour of protest songs –including Tim Baker's The Only World – a spoken manifesto and an Ojibwe healing hand drum song sung by Rebecca Chartrand.

Throughout the city, people tuned in to the university radio stations that carried the broadcast. They listened with their families and roommates, from their homes, their front porches and on bikes.

When the first cases of COVID-19 arrived in Manitoba in mid-March, young people from Manitoba Youth for Climate Action (MYCA) were in the midst of planning the big spring strike. The news of the virus' arrival dealt a substantial blow.

We want to dispel that rumour and make it clear that this pandemic is a lesson to us.- Sunny Enkin Lewis

First came the grief.

"This pandemic has been pretty hard on all of the youth involved in organizing," said 18-year-old Sunny Enkin Lewis, a MYCA organizer. "It does put a strain on people's mental health and myself included."

Enkin Lewis said she worries about her elderly loved ones who live in other provinces. She worries about the way the virus is disproportionately affecting people who are already vulnerable. And she worries people will stop pushing for climate action if they conclude the pandemic has solved the problem. It's true that fish are returning to the canals in Venice and global emissions have decreased, but CO2 in the atmosphere continues to increase.

"We want to dispel that rumour and make it clear that this pandemic is a lesson to us," said Enkin Lewis. "It's a lesson that we can come together and we can respond to emergencies like they are emergencies."

On the day of the virtual climate action, she and her family listened to the radio show from their front porch. Her dad played the shofar, an ancient Jewish instrument made out of a ram's horn, which was played for lots of important moments, including at Mount Sinai when Jewish people received the Torah. Some of their neighbours brought drums out onto the sidewalk, and a handful of friends biked by to say "hi" from a safe distance.

There's no way to know how many people participated, but it was enough to crash the websites of both the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba radio stations.

Even though feedback was positive, the radio show didn't elicit the same feelings for everyone that in-person striking does.

"Striking from home, it's different," said 13-year-old Miyawata Dion Stout. "It doesn't have the same energy. But you know that there are a lot of people all over the world doing just the same as you. So at the same time, you don't feel quite so alone."

Stout, who identifies as Cree from Kehewin First Nation in Alberta, was one of several Grade Seven students to start student climate strikes in Winnipeg a year and a half ago.

She doesn't think physical distancing will slow down youth climate organizers. 

"[The pandemic] has proven that even in a time that we can't even be with each other, we can still take action. And I think that's a powerful thing for us to understand for the future."

She and a friend are planning to do a physically-distant powwow for "healing of the earth and in solidarity with everyone suffering because of COVID-19." Stout is a fancy shawl dancer and her friend is a hoop dancer.

I think hope is what's going to bring us through the coronavirus. And hope is what's going to bring us through the climate crisis too.- Miyawata Dion Stout

"One thing I want people to know about this movement is that, while it is built on a lot of anger and frustration, it's built on all hope," said Stout. "And I think hope is what's going to bring us through the coronavirus. And hope is what's going to bring us through the climate crisis too."

Enkin Lewis says she was feeling run down and a bit burnt out when COVID-19 first arrived in Manitoba. But since the radio show in April, she has been encouraged to see 30 new people join their group. 

"Since the action was a success, and since bringing in new people to join our team, it's totally changed. And the energy within everyone in the group, you can really tell, has been reinvigorated."

About the Producer

Meghan Mast is a multimedia journalist who has covered agriculture, politics, hydro, health and the climate crisis. Her work has appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, the Globe and Mail and The Tyee.

This documentary was edited by Alison Cook.