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Multiculturalism and the
Environment
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The
environment is everyone's concern!
Ontario is
home to over 60 different cultures, with major language
groups (outside of French and English) that include Chinese, Italian, German, Portuguese, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Polish, Spanish, Dutch, and Ukrainian.
The
challenge for Ontario's environmental movement is to
ensure that everyone, no matter what culture or first
language, is involved in protecting the environment.
This can be
achieved in three ways:
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with
environmental contacts and programs in the major
cultural associations,
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by
making educational material available in different
languages, and
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by
developing environmental projects with cultural
groups
For more
statistics on multiculturalism in Canada, see "Multicultural Canada: A Demographic Overview"
on the Canadian
Heritage - Multiculturalism website.
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How can I contact Ontario's multicultural groups?
Settlement.org
is an excellent source of information for new Canadians.
The website has an extensive list of organizations,
organized alphabetically, by category (including
environment), or you can use a search engine to look for
a specific keyword or language. Best
Bet!
Settlement.org is managed by the Ontario Council of
Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI). Many of Ontario's
multicultural agencies belong to OCASI. Their
website includes a directory of member agencies, which
is also a good starting place to find
multicultural agencies in your area.
In Toronto, perhaps the best place to start is Community
Information Toronto (CIT), a service of the City of
Toronto. CIT publishes the Blue Book
which, for $54, will give you information on
community, government, and social services in
Toronto. You can also find a copy at your local
library. The CIT website also has a list of Community
Information Centres across the province.
In Peel, contact the Multicultural
Inter-Agency Group (MIAG): they have a directory of
agencies for the Region of Peel.
National Contacts
Cultures
Canada is a project of the Canadian
Ethnocultural Council. The website has
sections on cultural communities, a database of
organizations that can be searched by region, and a links
section.
The Canadian
Heritage - Multiculturalism website has a list of
links to Canadian organizations.
Who is working to connect
the environmental movement with cultural
groups?
The Sustainability
Network has published a Directory
of Ethno-Cultural Organizations and the
Environment. The Directory lists contacts and
case studies of groups working to connect Ontario's
cultural groups with the enviornment.
In particular, here are
several groups that have the environment and
multiculturalism at the core of their mission:
Ontario Healthy Communities
Coalition (OHCC)
1900 - 180 Dundas St. West, Toronto, ON M5G 1Z8
Ph: (416) 408-4841
Toll free: 1-800-766-3418
E-mail: ohcc@opc.on.ca
The Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition seeks to achieve social, environmental, and
economic health and well-being for individuals, communities and local governments.
The Coalition brings together a broad-based group of communities and provincial organizations,
spanning the social, environmental, economic, and political spectrums.
Environmental Centre for New Canadians
(ECENECA)
contac:t: Yuga Juma
Onziga,, Executive Director of ECENECA
590 Jarvis Street, 2rd Floor, Toronto, ON M4Y 2J4, Canada
P
Phone 416-927-1333
E-mail: yugaonziga@eceneca.org
ECENECA (Environmental Centre for New Canadians) is a not-for-profit, community-based, provincially incorporated environmental organization. The agency was founded in 1993 with the support of the Toronto City Hall through the Healthy City Office.
Its mission
is:
- To deliver environmental education through workshops, seminars and audio visual training materials so as to assist new immigrants to adapt to Canadian culture pertaining to environmental issues.
- To promote health care education for new immigrants to Canada to ensure
that medical examinations are performed as soon as they enter Canada by providing education and list of treatment centers.
- To provide job skills training to the unemployed, needy or low skilled
immigrants.
- To assist needy or other underprivileged immigrants with a variety of settlement and other charitable programs with a view to assist with their adaptation to Canadian civic society.
Multiracial Network for Environmental Justice (MNEJ) (no
website available)
#204 - 1076 Bathurst Street,
c/o Hispanic Development Council (HDC),
Toronto, ON M5R 3G9
Phone: 416-760 - 2120
Email: mnej@canada.com
MNEJ works in close
cooperation with various ethno-cultural communities to
implement environmental education programs, and
community walking tours of Toronto neighbourhoods.
They help raise community awareness of the
environmentally significant sites in and around the
local area.
Toronto Chinese Health Education Committee (TCHEC) (no
website available)
Contact: Alice Lam
168 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario M5V 2R4
Phone: 416-703-9602
e-mail: alam@ctchc.com
TCHEC seeks to raise
community interest in and awareness of environmental
issues including issues related to environmental
health. They run an Environmental Ambassadors
program to train community volunteers in environmental
issues (see Major Projects below).
Where can I find
environmental information in different languages?
We haven't been able to find many sources of information,
but here's a few places to start.
City of Toronto
Access
Toronto offers information in more than 140 languages through Language Line
Services. People who cannot speak
English can call 416-338-0338 for assistance in whichever language
they speak. Access Toronto also offers translations of most city
factsheets. The information is not available on
the website, but can be ordered by phone or
e-mail. Phone: 416-338-0338, TTY: 416-338-0TTY (0889), e-mail:
access_toronto@city.toronto.on.ca
Provincial Government
At the provincial level, the Ministry of Natural
Resources has a few publications available in other languages (eg.
fishing regulations in Chinese). Call the Information
Access Service at 1-800-667-1940
Other Options
BabelFish:
Alta Vista's online translation service: It's full of errors, but you can get any web page
translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian,
Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, or Chinese. It even
keeps the format of the original web page.
What are some of the best
multicultural / environmental projects?
Environmental education
and community involvement are two important ways to
introduce new Canadians to our environment and our
environmental practices. Here are two examples of
successful projects that can be adapted for other
communities, cultural and language groups.
For these and other
success stories, see the Sustainability Network's 2001 Directory
of Ethno-Cultural Organizations and the
Environment.
Environmental Ambassadors
One of the more innovative and successful projects
has been the Toronto Chinese Health Education
Committee's (TCHEC) Environmental Ambassadors
project. Based on the "train the
trainer" concept (which was also used by the
Recycling Council of Ontario in their Master Composter
program), volunteers learn about environmental issues
through workshops and field trips. The volunteers
graduate from the course as "environmental
ambassadors" and help spread the message to Chinese
community groups and businesses across Toronto. In
recent years, the project has targetted climate change
and waste in restaurants.
For more information,
contact Alice Lam, alam@ctchc.com.
Tree-Planting and
Habitat Restoration
Several groups, such as Evergreen
and the Toronto and
Region Conservation Authority, have supported
projects to create new natural areas in urban
areas. Local community groups provide the labour
and other sponsors help turn a naturalization project
into a community event. For example, in 1997, The Toronto and Region Conservation
Authority initiated the "Community Development for Multicultural Environmental Stewardship
Project" to encourage visible minorities to take an active role in the environmental management of their communities.
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Make environmental factsheets readily available in all major
languages.
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Basic environmental information could be
translated (or adapted) to different languages and cultural
groups. In particular, new Canadians would benefit from
information about recycling, energy and water conservation, public
transit, and local natural areas.
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Develop the
Environmental Ambassadors project as a province- wide program.
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The Toronto Chinese
Health Education Committee's environmental ambassador project could
be easily adapted to other communities, and cultural and language groups.
It's a excellent way to reach a lot of people through volunteers.
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Get involved
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Start a community
project
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| Provincial
Government
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| Federal
Government |
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| Municipal Government |
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| Non-Government Organizations |
Ennvironmental groups that have worked on multicultural projects
are:
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The
Conservation Council of Ontario