2022

Project Objective

To foster a sense of environmental stewardship in the at-risk youth of our community, while providing the benefits of mentoring that are present in all of our programs.

We are all residents of this planet, and it is our responsibility to take stewardship of our environment. Moreover, it is our duty to give our youth the tools and knowledge to continue this work into the future. As they are the leaders of tomorrow, it lies in their hands to ensure that their communities and organizations maintain focus on conservation efforts. BBBSG recognizes this and we want to do our part to foster environmental values in the youth of our society. To this end, we are excited for the opportunity to continue our partnership with OWF.

Sadly, some youth face other dangers that seem to them more immediate than environmental concerns. The daily struggle of these marginalized children often includes dealing with poverty, drug abuse, school truancy, teenage pregnancy, and the like. These issues occupy more of the child’s attention, and so they feel that they have no time to devote to global issues such as conservation. This is unfortunate because conservation education can foster a sense of responsibility in children, which helps them develop other useful skills such as leadership, confidence and communication. These skills in turn help them deal with the other problems that they face in their daily life.

The Environ-Mentoring Program is designed to provide environmental and conservation education to at-risk youth who would otherwise not have access to such programming. Other community groups in Guelph offer similar programs, but there is always an associated cost or membership, and the families of our marginalized youth often must direct their spending to more immediate needs such as food, rent and clothing. Our innovative approach cultivates these beneficial abilities in the children who so desperately need them the most, at NO COST to the participants, by developing their appreciation and awareness for the natural world through environmental education.

Since 2014, our at-risk youth have participated in educational programming that has gotten them in touch with nature, while having fun and learning to cooperate as a group. They have gone snowshoeing, canoeing, and caving; they have studied birds, water habitats, and winter wildlife; and they jointly celebrated Canada’s 150th and Earth Day with a nature beautification event. They have even learned about other environmental projects in Ontario through Nature Crusaders magazines that were gifted to us by OWF (thank you)! The Environ-Mentoring Program has been experiencing such an increasing success since its inception that we have devoted additional resources to its development since 2018, for the benefit of more children to be supported by mentoring through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Guelph. We were delighted to maintain this level of service in 2019 through additional educational partnerships in our community and, though our activities were curtailed somewhat during the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented safer remote and online program delivery methods to accommodate physical distancing restrictions in 2020 and 2021. As the provincial vaccination efforts expanded, we began to once again safely deliver in-person sessions through 2022, though we still incorporate the virtual lessons and innovative techniques that we learned during the quarantine into the regular Environ-Mentoring programming schedule to keep our children learning no matter what the weather looks like!