2010 Ecological Action Conference

In November 2010 the YENYR Ecological Action Conference (EAC) was held at the Markham Civic Centre. The conference is anually held by the Youth Environmental Network of York Region (YENYR), this was the third year. YENYR was founded in 2007 by Vino Jeyapalan, it is a group of students working to raise awareness of environmental issues among young people in York Region through local initiatives. The EAC is a one of the YENYR initiatives used to raise awareness on environmental issues. Past speakers at the EAC include Justin Trudeau, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, just to name a few.

The conference was the largest thus far. The theme was ”Building an EcoSociety.” We focused on how social issues can be solved through environmental solutions. The Keynote speaker for the day was Dave Williams a record breaking Canadian Astronaut and Aquanaut, he has the record for the most space walks. He spoke about his many missions in space and the preciousness of our home planet and the importance of environmentalism.

Dave Williams delivering a keynote to 300+ delegates and attendees.

We had twelve education workshops running through the day, some of which include Loblaw’s Sustainable Fishing, WWF Canada, OCETA (Ontario Centre for Environmental Technology Advancement), Markham GreenPrint and much more. The workshops allowed students to get information in a more inclusive and classroom size environment. The workshops were very informal and educations, many of the workshop speakers and facilitators work in the environmental sector.

Loblaw Sustainable Fishing Workshop

Our endnote speaker Dev Aujla, founder of DreamNow shared the strategies, stories and tangible steps he has learned from the last two years of researching the new Green Economy, sharing some of the key insights that will be featured in his upcoming book.

Dev Aujla speaking.

Bobby Umar also kicked off the conference with his Power of Networking presentation and workshop. His work really helped students feel more comfortable and taught them important networking skills.

Bobby Umar speaking

In addition, the conference couldn’t have taken place without the kindness of our sponsors and partners who covered our many costs. Many of those sponsors and partners still work with YENYR to date, PowerStream is one of them.

PowerStream

At the end of the conferences students were hopefully inspired and given the tools to make a difference within their school and communities.

Visit http://yenyr.com to learn more about YENYR and their initiatives.