How does it work?

Each year, the Youth Environmental Justice program creates several internship positions for canadian Black youth interested in environmental work. The internships are from 4 to 6 months. We recruit, train and mentor them. We expose them to high-level environmental policy by sending them to high-caliber international events free of charge. We place them in partner organizations where they have opportunities to support and lead various projects and activities.

What is our track record?

In 2021, our first cohort of three interns went to COP 26 in Scotland for two weeks where they had intensive training on environmental communications and policy.

After COP, we placed them in two environmental and social organizations, Climate Action Network and the Public Service Aliance, where they interned for 4 months. Their trip to COP was covered by the program and they received a salary of $21 an hour for their full-time placements.

From the first day of their internships to the last day, the Youth Environmental Justice interns were exposed to high-caliber networks in the environmental and social sectors. They met with government officials and with environmental justice leaders. They were challenged to speak in public, in meetings and to the media about environmental justice issues.

What are the results?

All three interns in our first cohort were fully employed in the environmental and social sectors six months after the end of their internships. Some of them were in underemployment, working in customer service and in grocery stores before this internship program gave them an opportunity to work in fields related to their studies.

Some of our interns also obtained other career building training opportunities like environmental policy internships in Washington DC.

What is the expected outcome, why are we doing this?

We are doing this because the environmental sector is too uniform. A movement that is meant to address the biggest human challenge in history needs to be inclusive. Everyone needs to be part of the solution. We improve Black representation in the environmental sector one intern at the time.

The 2021 edition of this program was possible thanks to the financial support of Nature Canada and the help of Indigenous Climate Action and many other partners who are members of the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice.