October 2024
If You Build It, They Will Come: Lessons from Co-organizing Two Vancouver Climate Strikes
Photo credit: Amy Chui @amyyychui
If you build it, they will come.
In September 2019, 100,000 young people, teachers, parents and community members joined the Global Climate Strike in unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) lands/ City of Vancouver. That strike was organized by a group of high school students. As parents, we participated as attendees and were amazed by the momentum of the occasion.
Months later, students again hosted Greta Thunberg for a climate rally in Vancouver that saw another 10,000 people take to the streets.
Since then, the climate organizing capacity of school aged children has been difficult to maintain as kids graduate and have many competing interests and responsibilities. As such, no strike since 2019 has brought out the huge numbers and in some years it was unclear if a strike would even happen.
After now being part of the core organizing coalition of the 2023 and 2024 Global Climate Strikes, we know why. It is a lot of work. Adding to stress from school classes in early September, the post-pandemic mental health crisis among youth, global wars, anti-trans hate, and increased political divisiveness and aggressive rhetoric, organizing a climate strike for a high school student is a daunting task.
We helped to organize the strike as part of the Vancouver Climate Strike Coalition as a means to boost participation numbers with broad representation. The coalition has had two main aims: make the annual global climate strike fun and joyful, and bring people together across a broad spectrum of society to call for climate action in support of school aged kids.
Organizing a climate strike is an administrative challenge. Making sure you have funds, volunteers, adequate promotional materials, an enticing program and a safety plan is stressful for us parents too while also juggling work, anti-trans hate, global tension and political divisiveness in Canada. But the joy of the day and watching kids lead the way in demanding an end to fossil fuels makes it all worth it.
Organizing the Strike became easier once we got the word out and reached for support from our networks. Before we knew it, we were getting tons of help. Environmental non-governmental organizations, or ENGOs, were offering us tents, printing, funding leads and safety training. Funding was secured. Our friends were offering their skills to run art builds. And new contacts reached out to invite big name talents like Billy Bragg to perform at the strike.
Importantly, parents in the For Our Kids network used their existing professional skills to make sure the Strike came together. We had For Our Kids parents in communications and journalism running media strategies, a graphic designer mom designing social media graphics and the Strike poster, and lawyer and teacher parents in the network contacting principals, teachers and PACs across the Lower Mainland to advocate for climate education the week leading to the Strike while encouraging students to attend the event.
On September 20, the day before the provincial election writ dropped, thousands showed up for a climate strike in Vancouver, with young kids at the front of the march carrying a banner with the demand to “stop fossil fuels”. Uplifting music serenaded and brought us joy throughout the day and powerful speeches encouraged us all to never give up.
We had fun. We were safe. We connected. We watched young people rejuvenate as they were able to attend the Strike as attendees without the burden and stress of the organizational obligations of the day, which we as parents and community members happily took on.
Organizing a rally is a lot of work. But once you get the word out there and build a network of help, people will come and show up for our kids, and the joy and hope of the day melts all the stress away no matter the size of the crowd.
Written by Tarlan Razzaghi with Brittany Hopkins, Jennie Milligan, and Charlotte Gilmour - members of For Our Kids Vancouver.
