CYCC is constantly searching for volunteers for our projects, campaigns and central work.  If you would like to volunteer in a capacity that you don’t see outlined below, please contact us to discuss your ideas.  We are always ready to welcome new volunteers to our team.

Current Volunteer Opportunities:

Central Office Volunteer

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition is looking for a volunteer intern in Whitehorse, Yukon to work closely with our National Director.  If you want to gain valuable work experience helping to run a national youth NGO, here’s your chance.  To apply for this position please contact cycc.director@gmail.com.

Fight the Deniers Volunteers

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition has partnered with the Pembina Institute to fight the denier rhetoric which still appears in the media.  We are looking for a core team to be trained by the Pembina Institute and CYCC to take on the task of writing op ed peices, letters to the editor, and commenting on climate change media that comes out.  If this is somethig that excited you please contact cycc.director@gmail.com to get your name on the list.

10:10 Canada

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition has been named the Canadian hub for the 10:10 Global Campaign.  To make this campaign as far-reaching and successfull as possible we need volunteers from across Canada to come on board and get involved.  If this is something that excites you that you’d like to help out with, please email cycc.director@gmail.com.

Green Jobs Campaign Volunteers

The Green Jobs Campaign is a youth-driven, youth-run initiative to galvanize a movement for Green Jobs in Canada.  The Green Jobs Campaign is a nation-wide campaign designed to give youth a place to find those solutions together, spearheaded by our country’s largest environmental youth network, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition.   The Green Jobs Campaign will ensure that a Green Economy Tour travels from coast, to coast, to coast, and that Green Job Symposiums are held in your  region.  However, in order for us make this vision a reality, we need YOUR help!

The Green Jobs Campaign is seeking youth who would like to come on board for the following three areas:

• to become part of the Green Jobs Committee to help guide and grow the vision of our campaign through weekly meetings
• to support our growing Green Jobs community online through the contribution of environmental blogs, fresh new social media and creative online campaigning
• to help facilitate the Green Economy Tour/Green Jobs Symposium to come to your region

Any level of commitment is very welcomed.  We need your input, your creativity and your experiences to make the Green Jobs Campaign a success.  Please contact Sarah Jane, the Green Jobs Campaign Coordinator, at cycc.greenjobs@gmail.com to help all of our green dreams come true.

French Translators

We have just revamped our website and many of our campaign documents.  We would love help from bilingual speakers to translate these materials to increase their accessibility to all Canadian youth.  If you feel comfortable translating from English to French and would be interested in supporting the CYCC to better reach out to Francophone youth please contact cycc.director@gmail.com to get involved.

Website Evaluators

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition has just launched our new website, and we’d like to think of it as a work in progress.  We need keen volunteers to navigate throughout the site and let us know what else you want to see on it – what features and information are missing, what works and what doesn’t, what would you change?  We’ll use this feedback ot constantly update the site and make it as useful as possible for everyone.  If you’re interested in taking on this role please contact cycc.director@gmail.com.

CYCC Committee Members

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition is starting up three committees to ensure that we are led by the voices and experiences of our movement.  We are looking for your support and leadership to build strong national strategies and coordinated actions that will mobilize young people from a diversity of communities, just like we did for Power Shift Canada.  Let’s work together to forge a strong youth movement emphasizing sustainable policies, climate justice, and green jobs.

We are looking for 3 chairs and committed individuals to form an Outreach, Communications and G20 Convergence committee.  Members should be able to commit to at least 6 months, and 2-4 hours a week to this work. Email cycc.organize@gmail.com to get involved and mention the committee that interests you in the subject.

The three committees we are searching for members to join are:

Outreach Committee

• Develop outreach strategy that is primarily campus-based and span all provinces/territories

• Develop a toolkit for activists interested in organizing around green jobs, climate justice and sustainable policy for climate action

• Recruit regional point people to help with community and campus-level outreach

• Share resources and maintain communications with local organizers

Communications Committee

• Develop outreach materials

• Develop video invites for youth mobilization events

• Launch and maintain national and regional Facebook groups and twitter accounts

• Keep the website updated with the amazing things our movement is up to:

o Collect youth-produced media from local action teams and consolidate on website

o Research and share local and national media stories on website

o Update Map of Initiatives with actions happening across the country

o Keep our movement up-to-date with the latest articles/reports/blogs on climate science, policy, education, advocacy, climate justice and green jobs initiatives

G20 Convergence Committee

Young people from across Canada are coming to Toronto for a week long gathering of community organizers during the G8G20.  This People’s Convergence will be a historic moment for social movements in Canada as we come together to forge a united front for global justice in Toronto. Network, skill-share, and connect with other committed activists fighting for Indigenous Sovereignty and Self-Determination; for Migrant Justice and an End to War and Occupation; for Climate Justice; for Income Equity and community control over resources.

• Develop outreach, fundraising, and communications strategy for convergence

• Recruit local activists and allies interested in organizing a convergence group from their campus/community

• Coordinate with Outreach and Communications Committee

• Coordinate with Toronto-based climate organizers to be informed of activities, accommodations, etc for G20

• Link different communities involved in the Toronto convergence

Spotlight on our Volunteers

CYCC could not be half as successful as we are without the passionate dedication of our volunteers.  We would like to thank each and every person who gives time to make CYCC the best organization it can be.  To help give you a sense of the amazing diversity of skills and passions our volunteer team bring to us each and every day we’d like to introduce some of these dedicated individuals to you.

Jamie Biggar; Climate Crews Leader and Domestic Policy Advisor

Jamie Biggar is a grad student at the University of Victoria where he studies political ecology. He has co-founded two youth-led campus-sustainability organizations, Common Energy and goBeyond. He has recently become the Chair of the Sierra Club of BC, sits on the BC government-appointed Citizen’s Conservation Council for Vancouver Island and the Coast and he is a Research Associate at the POLIS
Project on Ecological Governance. Jamie has also co-executed several social media campaigns, including Canadians for a Progressive Coalition, Canadians for the Planet and Donuts, Climate Mob Mondays, and Declare Your Support For The Environment.

Andrew Cuddy; International Climate Policy Advisor

Born in Toronto but raised in Ottawa, Andrew is currently a fourth year student at McGill University completing an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts of Science in Political Science and Environmental Science. While volunteering in Uganda during the summer of 2007 for an NGO involved with HIV/AIDS education, Andrew saw first-hand the detrimental effects that climate change has already begun to have on developing countries. This experience fostered within him a passion for climate justice, leading him to become further engaged in campus activism and eventually intern with Sierra Club Canada during the following summer. There, he was given the opportunity to conduct in-depth research on climate change policy, including an analysis of each party’s platform for the 2008 Canadian Federal Election. Andrew is also presently a research intern with the Pembina Institute’s Climate Change Program where he is authoring a report on the politics of and funding for climate science within Canada. In the not too distant future, he intends to pursue graduate studies in either political/social theory or ecological economics. Along with his long-standing interest in the movement for climate justice, Andrew hopes to someday focus his activist efforts on defending the rights of those suffering from severe mental illness and on fighting to reform the structures of our current media system. During his rare moments of free time, Andrew enjoys reading a good book, playing soccer with friends, and walking his dog Chloe who fills his life with endless amounts of joy.

Tria Donaldson; Power Shift Canada Coordinator and Canadian Youth Delegation Communications Coordinator

Tria Donaldson loves building community through activism. And Karaoke, but luckily for you Power Shift involved activism, and not karaoke – because her conference organizing skills are much more well honed then her singing skills. Tria first got bit by the organizing bug in elementary school, where she sat on a committee to naturalize her school’s landscapes. Since then she has worked a numerous social justice and environmental causes – like access to education, anti-racism, and campus sustainability. Tria is very passionate about addressing climate change in a fair an equitable manner that also addressing systemic oppression and inequality. She is an active volunteer with several organizations, including the Sierra Youth Coalition and CYCC. She has recently been accepted to be part of the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP 15 and she is very, very excited. In her spare time, Tria works for goBeyond, a youth driven climate project that works with 12 post-secondary institutions in BC. Tria spends too much time working and is currently taking time off of her Bachelor of Journalism at Thompson Rivers University. And she likes trying to grow food.

Sofia Fortin; Power Shift Canada Communications Coordinator

Born and raised under the midnight sun, Sofia has returned to the Yukon to make her home. She tried to be a big city girl for a while but found the draw of mountain vistas, and lakes around every corner too strong to resist. So she’s back home attempting to make a career out of environmental social marketing. She has a degree in Communications from Simon Fraser University with a minor and publishing. While pursuing this degree she found herself totally inspired by her global change class in resource environmental management and has never looked back. Every since she has been learning everything she can about climate change, especially in the north, and how to create and foster sustainable behaviour change in our communities. Her passions including painting, learning how to knit and felt, talking – a lot, writing, and helping people share their stories.

“My motivation for volunteering with Power Shift was that I wanted to take the opportunity to push myself to really stand up for what I believe in in a very public way. I wanted to meet a network of like-minded youth across the country, gain new skills, and be part of a very amazing moment in the history of Canada and the green youth movement.”

Tyler Kuhn; CYCC and Power Shift Canada Web Designer

Tyler is a northerner at heart, having grown up in the Yukon. He is currently working on a Masters of Science degree from Simon Fraser University. He is interested in using paleontological information to help guide animal conservation. Part of his M.Sc. work uses ancient DNA recovered from fossil caribou to improve our understanding of caribou’s relationship with their environment, changing climates and natural disasters (e.g. volcanic eruptions). The other aspect of his thesis involves examining the impact humans have had on global bird and mammal biodiversity. Tyler helped create the International Polar Year Youth Steering Committee (now known as the Association of Early Career Polar Scientists, APECS). This project was envisioned to ensure that youth and young researchers were given the maximum benefit and opportunities from the massive international polar research program (IPY). Tyler has spent much of his recent free time exploring how to ’sell’ climate change and environmental action in a positive light. In addition, he is a semi-professional photographer, using his work to try and connect viewers with the natural world.

Nadia Nowak; Climate Crews Leader

My name is Nadia Nowak, I grew up on a little island called Pender with the forest as my backyard and the ocean as my sprawl.  I am currently studying environmental planning at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George.  I have cared about environmental issues from a young age, growing up with a father that runs the local recycling depot really teaches a girl that tin cans must be rinsed and labels must be removed!  It has only been in the past year that I have gone beyond simple things like recycling, composting, cycling, changing light bulbs etc. to become a climate activist.  I am now deeply committed to this movement; in the summer of 2009 I cycled from Pender Island to Thunder Bay to bring the message that strong and effective climate action is needed now to protect the future of today’s children and youth–we have a right to survival.  I am sad, scared, angry, and full of hope.

Derek Pieper; Canadian Youth Delegation Mentor

Derek has recently completed his MSc. in Environmental Change & Management at the University of Oxford in the UK. He is currently working as a research intern at Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute on a project to help deliver low-carbon development to Chinese cities.  Always keen to get outdoors, this past spring Derek was very fortunate to have joined an educational expedition to the Antarctic to examine first hand the impacts of climate change on the polar ecosystem.