The Otesha Project

Last updated

The Otesha Project was a Canadian non-profit that promoted social and environmental sustainability among young people. Founded in 2002, the organization disbanded on December 31, 2015. [1] At one point, the project had affiliates in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Contents

Otesha used theatre, workshops, cycling tours, and publications. They claimed to have worked with over 150,000 Canadians and trained over 500 sustainability advocates. [2]

History

Otesha was founded in 2002 by Jocelyn Land-Murphy and Jessica Lax. [3] While studying sustainable development in Kenya, the two women witnessed the disparity between lifestyles enjoyed by many in North America versus those of many Kenyans. [4] [3] They were disturbed by the relative excess of wealth and consumption among North Americans,

The two women then started the Otesha Project – “otesha” is a Swahili word which translates as “reason to dream”. [5] In October 2003, they launched the first, transcontinental Otesha bicycle tour in Canada. During this tour, participants delivered 250 presentations [6] to over 12,000 people. [7]

On December 31, 2015, Otesha announced that it was shutting down due to lack of funding. [1]

Programs

Presentations

Otesha used theatre, multi-media, storytelling, motivational speaking, games, facilitation tools and workshops to teach about sustainability. Facilitators would run sessions with 30 participants, running activities and encouraging participants to use their own experience to problem-solve. . [8]

Bicycle Tours

Every year, Otesha ran several bicycle tours throughout Canada. Tours ranged in length from 9 days to 2 months and typically had between 12 and 18 tour members. [9] The groups strived to live as sustainably as possible while on tour. [10] Tour life was largely self-directed; decisions are made by consensus. [11] Each tour member played a role in determining what types of food the group will and will not eat, how they will limit their water consumption, etc. Tour members were responsible for fundraising to cover the tour costs. [12]

Triple H Program

Otesha put on presentations as a part of their Hopeful High school Hooligan (Triple-H) program. This project brings together teams of 10-15 high school students to learn, and present, The Otesha 'Choices' play to their own schools. [13] Presentations were made to over 9,000 high school students.

The Otesha Book

Otesha published The Otesha Book: From Junk to Funk, which contained essays from over a dozen authors on individual actions to further sustainability. [14]

International Chapters

The Otesha international affiliates included Otesha UK, [15] O.P.E.N. (Otesha Pan European Network), and Otesha (Australia). Each organization offered cycling tours, workshops, experiential learning and training for youth to become sustainability advocates.

The UK organisation used interns to promote imports to the UK from countries that had no comparable social insurance system, and so contributed to the high unemployment of garment workers in the Tower Hamlets area where Otesha shared a subsidised office with similar organisations that have also since closed. "Like often criticised unpaid internships", that Otesha managed for PR to promote imported products "unintentionally reinforcing the same social divides we were trying to undo – increasing division between people who had the privilege to do these things, and those who didn’t." None of the clothing and fair trade related organisations advocated social insurance systems in Africa, India or the far east. The group of related organisations (Ethical Fashion bloggers, Ethical Fashion Forum, Pants to Poverty) lost their subsidised office space about the same time, after a political change in Tower Hamlets, and most then closed.

Related Research Articles

Ethical consumerism is a type of consumer activism based on the concept of dollar voting. People practice it by buying ethically made products that support small-scale manufacturers or local artisans and protect animals and the environment, while boycotting products that exploit children as workers, are tested on animals, or damage the environment.

Traidcraft was a UK-based Fairtrade organisation, established in 1979. Its trading arm, Traidcraft plc, which sold fairly traded products, went into administration in January 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cycling club</span> Society for cyclists

A cycling club is a society for cyclists. Clubs tend to be mostly local, and can be general or specialised. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Cyclists' Touring Club, (CTC) is a national cycling association; the Tricycle Association, Tandem Club and the Veterans Time Trial Association, for those over 40, are specialist clubs. Members of specialist or national groups often also belong to local clubs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Index of Wellbeing</span>

The Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) is a composite index, composed of eight interconnected domains that measures stability and change in the wellbeing of Canadians over time. The CIW describes wellbeing as, "The presence of the highest possible quality of life in its full breadth of expression, focused on but not necessarily exclusive to: good living, standards, robust health, a sustainable environment, vital communities, an educated populace, balanced time use, high levels of democratic participation, and access to and participation in leisure and culture". The CIW acts as a companion measure of societal progress to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is based solely upon economic productivity.

Triodos Bank N.V. is an ethical bank based in the Netherlands with many branches in Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom, and Spain. It was founded in 1980. The bank prioritises investment in environmentally friendly initiatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Population Matters</span> UK-based charity

Population Matters, formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust, is a UK-based charity that addresses population size and its effects on environmental sustainability. It considers population growth as a major contributor to environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, resource depletion and climate change. The group promotes ethical, choice-based solutions through lobbying, campaigning and awareness-raising.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socially responsible investing</span> Any investment strategy combining both financial performance and social/ethical impact.

Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about social change regarded as positive by proponents. Socially responsible investments often constitute a small percentage of total funds invested by corporations and are riddled with obstacles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanity First</span> International non-governmental organization

Humanity First is an international charity that provides disaster relief and long term development assistance to vulnerable communities in 52 countries across 6 continents. The organisation is run by volunteers with diverse skillsets across the world and has access to thousands of extra volunteers worldwide. Volunteer staff in all areas often pay their own expenses to support the international projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ClimateCare</span>

ClimateCare is a profit for purpose environmental and social impact company known for its role providing carbon offset services, with a particular focus on using carbon and other results based finance to support its 'Climate+Care Projects'. It also provides businesses and governments with sustainable development programmes, environmental and social impact measurement and project development.

Bioregional is a British entrepreneurial charity, which aims to invent and deliver practical solutions for sustainability. It was founded in 1992 on the belief that overconsumption of resources was the driving force behind environmental degradation, and set out to find new ways for people to meet more of their needs from local resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Kielburger</span> Canadian human rights activist

Craig Kielburger is a Canadian human rights activist and social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder, with his brother Marc Kielburger, of the WE Charity, as well as We Day and the independent, social enterprise Me to We. On April 11, 2008, Kielburger was named a member of the Order of Canada.

Garden sharing or urban horticulture sharing is a local food and urban farming arrangement where a landowner allows a gardener access to land, typically a front or back yard, in order to grow food.

Bicycology is a UK-based collective that was formed after the 2005 London to Scotland G8 Bike Ride. It is a non-hierarchical non-profit organisation which aims to promote cycling as part of a wider focus on social and environmental sustainability. Bicycology has received funding from Artists Project Earth and is a member organisation of the World Carfree Network.

Green Action Centre (GAC) Formally known as the Recycling Council of Manitoba and the Resource Conservation Manitoba is an environmental, non-profit organization based in Manitoba, Canada. It includes promoting greener living through environmental education for households, workplaces, schools, and communities. It also develops and advocates environmental policies for the Manitoba communities. Its primary areas of activity include; green commuting, composting and waste, sustainable living, and resource conservation.

Tourism Concern was a British NGO, advocating ethical tourism through campaigning and educating the tourism industry and travelling public.It closed in September 2018. Its members and staff worked to highlight global tourism's negative impacts and potential solutions, believing that host communities should truly benefit, not suffer, from tourism development. Its web and print archives held by Warwick University document the scope of its work over thirty years. Stated aims were 'to increase understanding of the impact of tourism on environments and host communities among governments, industry, civil society and tourists; and to promote tourism development that is sustainable, just and participatory, and which is founded on a respect for human rights.'

International Resources for Fairer Trade (IRFT) is a non-profit organisation registered as a Public Charitable Trust under the Bombay Public Charitable Trust Act. It was founded by Kirit Dave and Jan Simmonds in October 1995. Vinita Singh was the first Director of IRFT during the period 1996-2002 and tied up with DFID, and Traidcraft. Arun Raste succeeded her as the Director in IRFT and was heading the organisation till 2008, during which time IRFT opened 2nd office in Hyderabad and forged partnership with Hivos, BTC and Oxfam. During the tenure of Arun Raste, IRFT also forged partnerships with SAI, FLO, Better Cotton Initiative and FLA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Time's Up!</span> Environmental organization in New York, United States

Time's Up! Environmental Organization was founded in 1987 to help educate New Yorkers about environmental awareness. One of its main focuses is to promote non-polluting transportation, by advocating bicycling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Resources Forum</span> Non-profit organisation

The World Resources Forum (WRF) is a non-profit organisation for sharing knowledge about the economic, political, social and environmental implications of global resource use. WRF promotes resource productivity among researchers, policymakers, business, NGOs and the public. In addition to organizing international and regional conferences, the WRF Secretariat coordinates multistakeholder dialogue projects, amongst others the Sustainable Recycling Initiative (SRI) as well as the H2020 projects Towards a World Forum on Raw Materials (FORAM), and CEWASTE. The WRF contributes to other EC-projects and projects with the German development organisation GiZ, UNEP and UNIDO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Changemakers</span>

Global Changemakers is an international youth organisation with headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. To date they have directly trained over 1000 young people and provided grants to 450 youth-led projects in over 128 countries.

Leyla Acaroglu is an Australian designer, sustainability innovator, and educator. She is the founder of two design agencies, Disrupt Design and Eco Innovators. She also founded the UnSchool, a pop-up program that disrupts the mainstream way that knowledge is gained and shared; the program won the Core77 Design Education Initiative Award.

References

  1. 1 2 "The End of the Ride". The Otesha Project. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  2. ↑ "The Otesha Project". otesha.ca. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  3. 1 2 "The Otesha Project". The Cord. 2012-02-01. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  4. ↑ "Funding Database - McConnell Foundation" . Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  5. ↑ "3M Environmental Innovation Award - The Royal Canadian Geographical Society". www.canadiangeographic.ca. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  6. ↑ "CBC - Make Some Noise". Archived from the original on 2010-05-03. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  7. ↑ "The Otesha Project". www.otesha.ca. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  8. ↑ "The Otesha Project". otesha.ca. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  9. ↑ "thestar.com - The Star - Canada's largest daily". thestar.com. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  10. ↑ "Opinion - Blogs - Our blogs have moved!". Archived from the original on 2012-07-22. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  11. ↑ "Determined activists ride on for fallen friend - The Star". Toronto Star . 8 October 2010. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  12. ↑ "The Otesha Project". otesha.ca. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  13. ↑ "The Otesha Project". www.otesha.ca. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  14. ↑ "Worldchanging: Bright Green: Reason to Dream". Archived from the original on 2011-08-14. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  15. ↑ "Otesha UK". 9 July 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-07-09.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.