A Richmond resident is advocating for more climate change conversations with immigrants and those whose first language isn’t English.
UBC student Laura Chen co-founded Green Jobs for All to encourage young people to talk with their family and friends about climate change.
Chen, who founded Green Jobs for All along with Carmen Kim, found that language barriers are one of the biggest issues that prevented people from understanding how Canada and other countries are impacted by climate change.
And she discovered that no groups were actively encouraging immigrant families to talk about climate change and political perspectives.
“Climate change is really a fundamental human rights issue,” said Chen, whose non-partisan organization provides information to the immigrant communities about climate change and promotes conversation of a greener economy.
“If you’re talking about how to alleviate poverty of how to readjust security, you have to also talk about how to readjust climate change because all these issues are interlinked.”
Chen added that she wanted to challenge the stigma that many people are afraid a greener economy will cause fewer jobs.
Bilingual videos, in Koreanand Chinese(so far), are prepared for immigrant communities on how important climate change is – the videos are collaboration of personal views and on climate change and politics between a young person and an older immigrant.
“No one can argue how you feel because it’s your story, and I think the power is speaking the truth and that’s what we are trying to do,” said Chen.
“Coming from families of immigrants, we recognized the challenges immigrants and people of colour face when it came to feeling represented and engaged in meaningful ways in the Canadian political process.”
She added that she saw a lack of political participation within the immigrant communities.
When Chen asked if her grandparents every voted in the election, her mother told her they never did because they were too scared to vote for someone they weren’t entirely sure about or for someone who didn’t understand the policies and politics in Canada.
“From our perspective as Canadian immigrants, we think the most effective way to talk about climate change is to share stories and that civil engagement and educating people about how to go about in participating in these conversations is super important as well.”