Highly respected and recognized in the field of environmentalism for her expertise, leadership, diplomacy and commitment, as well as her organizational skills, Amelia C. Clarke has long been fighting to help our planet breathe more easily. For a dozen years now, this doctorate student in management at McGill University has been representing Canadian Environmental Non-Government Organizations (ENGOs) at a number of international meetings. For many years Amelia was a member of the Canadian Environmental Network Youth Caucus where, among other things, she coordinated the activities of the Les Amis des monts Noël group which worked towards protecting the forests on Mount Noël in New Brunswick. She then went on to found Sierra Club of Canada’s Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC). As the national coordinator of SYC, she set up Sustainable Campuses, a project aimed at making campuses more environment-friendly that has now been established in 75% of Canadian universities. Amelia is currently the president of the Sierra Club of Canada, which has 30,000 members, and believes that sustainable development should be at the heart of all social, ecological and economical issues throughout the world. In fact, the young woman adamantly insists on using every platform available in order to convince different governments to adhere to this ideology.
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In elementary school, her nickname was Zorro. Since as far back as she can remember, she has never been indifferent to situations of injustice. In fact, it was during adolescence that she became truly aware of the issue of women’s rights and feminism. Today, Sandrine Ricci, a 35-year-old master’s student in intercultural and international communication and development at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), fervently aspires to help improve the world thanks to her training and social commitment. Her master’s thesis, currently in progress, is on rape as a war strategy and its effects on women immigrants trying to rebuild their identity in Québec. More specifically, Sandrine is interested in inter-ethnic relations, social solidarity, the status of women, human rights, citizenship practices and activist commitment. She gives concrete expression to her values as the president of the women’s centre at UQAM, by sitting on a committee at the women’s Y and by participating on various advisory committees. Sandrine is also taking part in an increasing number of intercultural training sessions which give her a true sense of building bridges between people. She responds to the prevailing pessimism by having faith that the world can be made perfect.
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Maryse Bourgault has always been socially committed and participated in numerous cooperation projects before deciding to focus her activities on improving the living conditions of more impoverished farmers around the world. The young woman, who chose to pursue her doctorate studies in agronomy at McGill University, believes that her research will have a significant impact on those she wishes to help. A recent visit to Uzbekistan enabled her to carry out research aimed at finding new techniques for cultivating vegetables in soil with very little water supply. The results were more than satisfactory and could even eventually have important repercussions on all types of culture in arid zones. Following a seven-month stay in Honduras as the coordinator of a natural medicine programme for a local development organization and another in Panama where she helped a group of women set up an organic garden, she realized that her actions could be highly beneficial to the people who strive, on a daily basis, to improve their situation.
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