Winners of the 2013 Awards
At our Fundraising Gala on March 13, 2013, we announced the recipients of our first annual Power of Youth Leadership Awards. We are pleased and proud to have the opportunity to honour Sonja Ostertag, Harsha Walia and Jamie Biggar. Read on to find out more about their work in their own words. More information about the awards is at the bottom of the page.
Sonja Ostertag, Leadership Award for Research, Analysis And Solutions
My parents have always encouraged and supported my siblings and me to follow our hearts, stand up against injustice and be engaged citizens. My commitment toward social and environmental change is part of my daily life: my activism in co-founding the Sea to Sands Conservation Alliance, and my doctoral research on contaminants in marine ecosystems. While this work has been challenging and an uphill battle at times, my family, colleagues and friends have supported my journey as a community organizer and scientist, and I would not be able to do what I do without their love and kindness.
As an environmental scientist, I work with northern communities to monitor the health of marine ecosystems. I am committed to studying arctic ecosystems because country foods are harvested directly from the land and water of the Arctic, and these foods are vital to the health of northern communities. During my time in communities in northern BC and the Arctic, I have come to recognize the conflict that exists between industrial development and food security. Oil spills, coal plants, climate change, and contaminants all pose threats to aquatic and marine life, and the communities who rely upon these ecosystems.
I have a vision of Canada in which policies are guided by research findings from academia and government institutions, developed through ongoing and meaningful participation with local communities, and inclusive of different ways of knowing and understanding the world. First Nations, Métis and Inuit have so much to teach the rest of Canada about valuing what is sacred, and protecting the land, water and air from pollution and irreversible damage from industrial development. We must listen to their stories and include their perspectives in decision-making in this country. Our governments must work towards respectful relationships with all Canadians and the environment that sustains us.
Harsha Walia, Leadership Award for Social Movement Building
My own experiences have taught me that justice is indivisible; that it is impossible to seek redemption for one part of myself while another part of myself, or other people, still face oppression and injustice. As a result, my social movement organizing and my vision are expansive. I organize daily for a world where we are all self-determining over our own bodies, lives, cultures, lands, and labour. A world where we strive for noncoercive and nonoppressive communities committed to Indigenous, racial, migrant, gender, economic, disability, reproductive, and environmental justice. A world where we can live free from cages, militaries, borders, reserves, segregation, toxic industries, corporations, sweatshops.
Many would say this anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist vision is unattainable, but just in the past year we been inspired by unimaginable victories. Quebec students won a tuition freeze after some of the largest street protests and civil disobedience actions in this country’s history; Indigenous nations and environmental activists have essentially prevented the Enbridge pipeline from proceeding; migrant communities won the first sanctuary city policy in North America to ensure that undocumented migrants have access to Toronto city services. Every day I see the red square, the blue drop or the red feather; symbols of resistance and revolution towards a more just, a more humane, a more egalitarian, a more decolonized society.
It is an act of faith to overcome fear in order to organize against authoritarian governance, oppressive hierarchies, and capitalist economies, while also shedding our internalized prejudices and isolated ways of relating to one another. I am honoured to be part of movements that are committed to individual and collective liberation, dignity and kinship. I feel blessed to be within communities that have an intersectional understanding of oppression and injustice. I am humbled to be alongside those who hold a deep desire to not reform, but transform, this system through strategic organizing to confront and dismantle power, an ethic of self-reflection, and intentionally respectful and just relations with each other and the lands we reside on.
Jamie Biggar, Leadership Award for Social Movement Building
I started organizing with students as part of the Canadian youth climate movement. We started making progress on our campuses, but it became clear that our federal government was doing everything it could to commit our planet to runaway global warming. So we challenged the Harper Conservatives in the lead-up to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference, the moment when national leaders were supposed to begin the serious global cooperation we need.
At Copenhagen I felt inspired by leaders from Africa and the Small Island Nations who stood up for climate justice. I felt ashamed of the representatives of Prime Minister Harper's minority government who were doing everything they could to sabotage the conference behind closed doors.
I felt like my generation was being abandoned and condemned by my government: I saw the raw power of fossil fuel industries, and I saw how together they were poisoning the well of the healthy democracy people need to come together and face real challenges.
Coming back from Copenhagen, a group of us decided that we should try to create a vehicle that would use the Internet as a tool to help people strengthen their voices, find common ground, and build political power together. We started Leadnow.ca as an experiment to further those goals.
We often think of democracy as a principle, an abstract ideal. We miss the fact that democracy is a practice — and just like music, theatre or sport, we need to practice and experiment to get better at it.
If we're going to stop runaway global warming, if we're going to reverse 30 years of growing inequality, we need to build more democratic societies — from the bottom-up, from the top-down, from the sides — wherever people can challenge arbitrary power and co-create better futures. This is hard, often frustrating, work — but it's worth the rewards.
In her book All about Love, feminist author bell hooks describes love as a verb, something we do. She defines love as the extension of the self to support the growth of another. Democracy can be like love. Let's try to love each other really well.
About the Awards
The Power of Youth Leadership Awards recognize and celebrate young progressive leaders in BC who are driving change towards a more socially, economically and environmentally just society.
The award is given in two categories to recognize the vision and leadership of young people in different areas:
- Engaging in research, analysis, and the development of solutions to key issues facing British Columbians, and
- Contributions to social movement building.
Eligibility and CriteriA
The Power of Youth Leadership Awards are open to progressive young leaders who are active in BC and are aged 35 and under as of December 31, 2012.
The CCPA recognizes that leadership comes in many different forms. For the purposes of these awards, “leadership” is defined very broadly and is not limited to being the lead person in a movement, organization or project.
Prior involvement with the CCPA is not required.
Please review the individual award descriptions to learn more about each category:
Leadership Award for Social Movement Building
This award recognizes an emerging leader who actively works to create positive social change and who strives to bring people, groups and/or communities together. The recipient has inspired and mobilized others in a social movement, organization or project, but not necessarily as the “lead person” of the group. The recipient has:
- Made a significant contribution to social movement-building in BC, by building bridges between communities or social movements; or
- Articulated a new and hopeful vision for the future and helped others find their role in bringing it to life; or
- Found new and/or creative ways to tackle a longstanding issue in their community; or
- Courageously taken risks and to stand up for what they believe in.
Leadership Award for Research, Analysis And Solutions
This award recognizes a young researcher, policy analyst and/or public intellectual who combines intellectual curiosity with a strong commitment to social, economic or environmental justice. He or she uses rigorous research to understand and confront injustice and/or contribute to progressive social change. The recipient has:
- Made a significant contribution to public interest research; or,
- Enriched the analysis and understanding of a public policy issue; or,
- Offered a new and hopeful vision for meeting a pressing social, economic or environmental challenge of our time; or,
- Shown leadership in public policy debates.
Selection
An intergenerational Adjudication Committee will determine the Power of Youth Award recipient in each of the two categories. The Awards will be presented at the CCPA Gala in the spring of 2013. A $250 donation will be made in each of the recipients’ names, to an organization of their choosing.
How to Nominate
Two nominators are required. Nominators may be peers, mentors, community members, etc. No self-nominations will be accepted. Nominations for the 2014 awards will open in September 2013.
