Keynote Speakers
Join us for our free public Earth Day keynote!
On Thursday, April 22 from 1:00-2:30pm EDT, catch Larissa Crawford, Indigenous and anti-racism researcher, public speaker, and founder of Future Ancestors Services, deliver a powerful free public address via Zoom on developing a unified understanding of climate and racial justice learnings and actions. This event will begin with an opening from Giidaakunadaad (Nancy Rowe), and will be open to classrooms, communities, and the general public. It is most suitable for high school-aged students and older.
Resources for educators
Educators attending with students are welcome and encouraged to use the two resources provided: a worksheet for reflecting on Larissa Crawford’s Earth Day keynote address, and a general workshop reflection worksheet applicable to any EECOM 2021 session.
Nancy Rowe
Thursday, April 22 and Saturday, April 24 – Opening and closing sessions
Nancy Rowe, whose Ojibwe name is Giidaakunadaad (“The Spirit Who Lives in High Places”), is a Mississauga, Ojibwe of the Anishinaabek Nation located at New Credit First Nation, and the Director of Akinomaagaye Gaamik, a grassroots initiative to provide educational opportunities for all peoples interested in Indigenous perspectives of life, health, education, history and the environment. Nancy will be facilitating EECOM 2021’s opening and closing sessions.
Merging our Climate Justice and Anti-Racist Learning Journeys
Larissa Crawford, Founder and Managing Director, Future Ancestors Services
Thursday, April 22 – Free, publicly-available Earth Day address
Through our shared time, this session seeks to inspire sustainable action that honours diverse peoples, our non-human kin, and Earth. By exploring the ways by which climate and racial justice require merged learnings and actions, we hope that you leave our space with a more profound and personalized understanding of how you can contribute to just and sustainable futures.
Bio
Larissa is a restorative circle keeper, published Indigenous and anti-racism researcher, award-winning ribbon skirt artist, and proudly passes on Métis and Jamaican ancestry to her daughter, Zyra. She is the Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led professional services social enterprise that advances equity and climate justice through lenses of ancestral accountability and anti-racism.
Future Ancestors Services is an Indigenous and Black-owned, youth-led professional services social enterprise that advances climate justice and equity with a lens of anti-racism and ancestral accountability. While centering decolonized and Indigenized practices, we support our clients and community in addressing systemic issues that disadvantage groups of people, our connections to land and others, and the well-being of Earth.
Under Larissa’s leadership and since their launch in April 2020, the organization has mobilized +$20K in donations for anti-racist and climate justice initiatives. Larissa and her team seek to increase their clients’ capacity to honour people and Planet through their minds, work, and spaces, and do so while leveraging decolonized and Indigenized approaches to ‘doing business.’ Among their +140 diverse clients are small youth-led collectives and non-profits; Canada’s most influential law firms and publishing houses; and the highest offices of Canadian government.
Larissa’s experiences have led to her specializations in raced-based data collection, Indigenous and anti-racism research, accessibility, restorative circle keeping, restorative practice and conflict resolution, climate justice, and public policy. Through programs such as the CohortX Climate Justice, the Action Canada, and the Youth Climate Lab FutureXChange fellowships, and the Raven Trust Capital Fireweed fellowship, Larissa continues her learning.
Education on the Land
Bomgiizhik (Isaac Murdoch) and Christi Belcourt
Friday, April 23
Isaac Murdoch and Christi Belcourt will discuss ideas on the importance of education that comes from the land and how this form of education is crucial relation to climate change and other environmental challenges.
Bomgiizhik (Isaac Murdoch)'s Bio
Bomgiizhik (Isaac Murdoch) is from Serpent River First Nation and is of the Pike Fish Clan. He grew up in the traditional lifestyle of hunting and fishing on the land. Bomgiizhik spent much time with his Grandparents and other Elders learning stories and traditional practices. He is a student of the Ojibwe Culture and Language. Currently, he lives at Nimkii Aazhibikoong, a Language and Cultural Community in Northern Ontario. He has a son named Preston, and three daughters, Waabigwan, Elaine, and Nanook.
Christi Belcourt's Bio
Christi Belcourt (Michif / Lac Ste. Anne, AB) is a visual artist, environmentalist, social justice advocate, designer, author, and avid land-based arts and language learner. She is also a student of the plants and of the land. Her work is found within many public and permanent collections across North America including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Gabriel Dumont Museum, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery and the Frist Museum among others. She was named the Aboriginal Arts Laureate for 2014 by the Ontario Arts Council. In 2016 she received both the Premiers Arts Award and a Governor General’s Award for Innovation. In the past five years she has been working with a small team to build Nimkii Aazhibikong which is a language camp intended for youth and Elders on the land.
Just Sustainabilities in Policy, Planning, and Practice
Dr. Julian Agyeman
Saturday, April 24
In his talk, Julian will outline the concept of ‘just sustainabilities’ as a response to the ‘equity deficit’ of much sustainability thinking and practice.
He will argue that what our cities can become (sustainable, smart, sharing and resilient), and who is allowed to belong in them (recognition of difference, diversity, and a right to the city) are fundamentally and inextricably interlinked. We must therefore act on both belonging and becoming, together, using just sustainabilities as the anchor, or face deepening spatial and social inequities and inequalities.
Julian will illustrate his ideas with examples from urban planning and design, education, urban agriculture, food justice, and the concept of sharing cities.
Bio
Julian Agyeman Ph.D. FRSA FRGS is a Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. He is the originator of the increasingly influential concept of just sustainabilities, the intentional integration of social justice and environmental sustainability. He centers his research on critical explorations of the complex and embedded relations between humans and the urban environment, whether mediated by governments or social movement organizations, and their effects on public policy and planning processes and outcomes, particularly in relation to notions of justice and equity.
Julian is the author or editor of 11 books, including Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World (MIT Press, 2003), Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability (MIT Press, 2011), and Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities (MIT Press, 2015), one of Nature’s Top 20 Books of 2015.
In 2018, he was awarded the Athena City Accolade by KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, for his “outstanding contribution to the field of social justice and ecological sustainability, environmental policy and planning“. For a full biography, please visit https://julianagyeman.com.