Youth Summit

2021 Youth Summit for Mother Earth

For the 2021 Youth Summit, Ontario Nature, the Indigenous Environmental Institute at Trent University, Plenty Canada, and Walpole Island Land Trust will be partnering with our leaders on the Youth Council and Youth Circle for Mother Earth’s Coordinating Circle to offer a unique, cross-cultural event for youth across Ontario.

Appreciating nature, 2020 Summit scavenger hunt © Mikayla W

Details

The 2021 Youth Summit for Mother Earth will be held as a series of online and offline events, with key events happening on September 25 and 26, 2021, and a follow-up virtual event in October. The offline events are conditional on the recommendations of public health authorities in light of COVID-19.

Where: Online
Who: 200 youth (aged 14–20) from across Ontario for our largest summit yet!

The summit will feature workshops, keynote speakers, and plenty of group activities and challenges to get participants outdoors.

The 2019 Youth Summit brought together over 100 youth from communities across Ontario © Noah Cole

Registration

Registration for sponsored youth will open in late spring. Instructions to access the password-protected form will be emailed directly to sponsors and sponsored youth.

If you are not being sponsored to attend and would like to participate, please contact the event coordinator below to be notified when the subsidized registration opens.

Please contact Christine Ambre christinea@ontarionature.org or 416-444-8419 ext. 244 if you have any inquiries about sponsorship or questions about registration.

Medicine pouch, 2020 Summit challenge © Leah B

Highlights from 2020

From August 22 to September 19, 2020, environmental leaders from across the province gathered virtually over a series of livestreams highlighting cross-cultural learning and knowledge sharing. With our youth leaders and partners, this re-imagined gathering brought 92 young leaders and 12 youth mentors representing 55 communities across Ontario as far as Windsor, Cornwall Island and Kenora, with youth identifying from Indigenous communities across Turtle Island and cultures around the world.

Other highlights included workshops on traditional medicine, environmental policy, manoomin (wild rice) and Indigenous food sovereignty. Participants were able to participate in virtual discussions and youth-led sessions on baaga’adowewin (the sport of lacrosse and its importance to Indigenous peoples), learning Inuktitut, nature dance class, and story sharing. They also participated in challenges that gave them the chance to get out into nature and connect with one another meaningfully, while also developing their leadership and event planning skills.

We were also lucky to have Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm from Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation as our keynote, who inspired participants to seek the truth and see the world from different perspectives.

Waterlily, 2020 Youth Summit for Mother Earth © Mikayla W

“The knowledge shared in this summit was very empowering and a lot of it completely new to me and I’m so grateful for that. I personally found that the group challenge was my favourite part because it is so hard to know how to take initiative and where to begin. Having this opportunity and support to create ideas and put them into action was amazing! Having done that, I feel so much more comfortable and less overwhelmed by the idea of initiating an event/campaign!” – 2020 Youth Summit participant from Stayner

“I really enjoyed this summit. I did not participate in last years, so can’t compare, but I thought this was really well put together (and virtually at that!). The mail swag was definitely fun to receive. I can’t wait to share all that I learned.”– 2020 Youth Summit participant from Walpole Island

Canoeing, 2020 Virtual Youth Summit for Mother Earth © Sophia L

Thank you to our Nature Network member groups and others whose financial support has made the 2020 Youth Summit possible: