Troublesome Twos & Pivoting Towards Climate Justice

Manvi Bhalla  0:00 

I think the youth energy is something important to capture, you know.

Rose Duncan  0:05 

Hello, everybody. And thank you for joining us for the first episode of Establish a new podcast brought to you by Shake Up The Establishment. We are so so excited to be bringing you this series, where we’re going to be opening a dialogue with climate justice leaders, community activists, and you’ll get to hear from some of the awesome volunteers that we have at shake up the establishment. I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge that shake up the establishment as a youth led registered national nonpartisan nonprofit organization that operates within the geographical confines of what is currently known as Canada. But what is referred to by its first peoples as Turtle Island. Indigenous peoples have inhabited Turtle Island for over 10,000 years, and were the sole inhabitants less than 500 years ago. We acknowledge that our address resides on treaty free land, and it’s the traditional territory of the eerie neutral here on one that hold no Shawnee and Mississauga as peoples Turtle Island is still home to many Indigenous peoples, and we at SUTE are thankful to be able to live, learn and work on this territory, whilst continuing to create meaningful change for the climate justice movement.

Alright, let’s get started. My name is Rose. And today I’m joined by three of SUTE’s amazing leaders, who if you’ve been following us for a little while now, you may be familiar with them. We’ve got Manvi Bhalla today, who’s our president and co-founder. We’re also joined by Samantha Casey, our capable chief development officer, and Stephanie Rosen, the incredible director of funding and outreach. This episode is going to be touching upon SUTE’s origins of the grassroots organization, as well as giving you a little bit more background of everything that we’ve got coming up and some of the awesome work we’ve done thus far. April 24, today, is actually the organization’s second founding birthday, if you will, which is so exciting.

Samantha Casey  2:09 

Yeah, we’re no longer in infancy. Yeah, we’re now officially a toddler. Which is good because we’re trying to like walk and run with all this stuff that we’re doing. Yeah,

Manvi Bhalla  2:18 

we’re in troubled twos, we’re gonna cause some trouble.

Samantha Casey  2:22 

I feel like it’s like the age or maybe I have no idea because I’m definitely not a childhood expert, but isn’t two like the age when you start saying like “No” to everything and asking why?

Rose Duncan  2:32 

That feels like oddly fitting. And I love that. So I’m going to use that as a kickoff for Manvi to let us know SUTE’s origins. Tell us more about the organization and how everything got started?

Manvi Bhalla  2:43 

Yeah, end of April 2019. Shall I take y’all back? Well, three of us were a part of a club called oxfam Guelph. And we’ve been involved in so many on campus initiatives, like all four of us. And we were just a really extracurricular bunch, particularly myself, I’ve been community organizing for 10 years now, or 11 years now, I don’t even know. And I just missed organizing immediately after I graduated. And I was just like, Hey, guys, what’s next? So basically, we just had these conversations. And the issue that was most pressing to me and had become over the years, had become the most pressing issue is climate change. And then we just kind of had these conversations. And actually, the real origin of SUTE is I was on a flight with my mom coming back from Iceland. And I yelled at her for three hours. And I love my mother, she’s a part of SUTE and she’s very woke. But we had a, we had a disagreement about like, who to vote for or like something about like, the platforms and it was just such a small disagreement. My mom and I, we escalate things a lot. But like we’d love each other, so we can talk at very high voices and be like, no, you’re stupid, but we still love each other. And so this like whole flight, we were arguing. And then the whole argument was about like, something about like, how political parties like spin their platforms and I was, like, the like, iconic thing that I said to my mother was, I’m gonna make you a non-partisan like comparison chart. And then we like left the airport. So I came back to my place in Guelph with my roommates. And that’s when I started having these conversations with my friends. And that’s when on this couch, just having a very chill hang. And I was just like, bothering people with political discourse. And they were like, We don’t really know either or we had some thoughts, I guess. And we went back and forth. And then I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I just didn’t have the capacity or maybe the confidence I would say, I definitely lacked that and I just needed support and they were amazing. And we did the iteration of SUTE around the federal election with like, the non-partisan political party comparison chart, blah, blah, blah, which was so wonderful. Like so many cool collabs came out of that friendships like Peyton Mitchell shout out from you know, Climate Strike Canada and then Patagonia and like Matt Brown reached out. So many people got in touch because they liked it and like this guy who was reporter, Carl Meyer, was really the one who brought SUTE. He made SUTE because he, I sent in press releases out, I’d never done that before and the night before the website launched. I sent press releases out. So I sent the press release out at 8pm, and he replies and he’s like, Can I interview you? And like, or something like 9pm on a Sunday? And I was like, sure. And he’s like, Can I get a preview of the website? We hadn’t made the website yet. We were I don’t even know when we were planning to do that it was like a very classic like, undergraduate students school assignment. 11:59pm, we actually pulled an all nighter. It was mostly Taro and I, who was one of the one of the founders of the original version of SUTE, not the incorporated version. And if we pulled the complete all nighter, we were up from that interview till 8am and 8:30am. And that’s when we went to sleep. We even did a midnight McDonald’s run because we needed to get coffee because we just like couldn’t make it. We made the whole website in one night and then sent Carl Meyer the screenshot, like at 8:30. And then I and then I fell asleep on a futon? It was crazy. Um, but then yeah, then his article kind of made the website go viral. So big love to Carl for believing in us. With my weird ass press release that worked. And then, and then yeah, we had a great run until the election in October. And then end of October, people were really overwhelmed. Like the original group did not sign up for anything more than the chart. So all these collabs and all these like interesting events and all these young people coming out to meet us. I was like, shocked. It was like, I am not interesting enough to for you to drive from Mississauga to meet me in downtown Toronto. But I was like, cool. This is so wonderful. Let’s do this. And then we, we kept doing it. And then we took a break – November to January – and thought everyone go rest, and we’ll think about what if we’re going to keep doing this, or if we’re not going to keep doing this. But in the months that we were on pause, we called it a hiatus, and we were just like, most of the people either decided either of the original team, I think it’s just me and Tina, at this point, and Janaya, who’s my co-founder, we incorporated in Feb[ruary] because we wanted to be able to apply to some of the bigger grants that are inaccessible. And that’s when my mother came in, she was such a big help. She’s a big believer in supporting young women doing whatever they want to do. So she always just like, blindly supports anything I say, which is wonderful. She was just like, this is a crazy idea. But let’s do it. And then yeah, and then Feb[ruary], we incorporated but then in February we incorporated with a version of SUTE that I wasn’t happy with at all. And it was super, like more-so I think the processes took so long that we decided we were like very tired and went with the version of SUTE that we were in October. And that’s not the SUTE that we really wanted to create. So then Janaya, and my mom and I really had conversations with our current team, all of you guys on this call, and then others. And we came up by I think, end of May, or maybe even earlier, I don’t remember the exact timeline now. But end of May, I think beginning of June, we like re-launched SUTE, as like a justice oriented organization, which is really what we wanted from the from the start, but those incorporation processes take like the life out of you. So we didn’t really, we just didn’t give it as much thought as we should have when we first like did it, we were just trying to get through. But I think as young people you live and, you learn. So that’s like the basic story, I would say, I know, it was very detailed. I have ADHD, so I’m never not going to go into all the details. But, um, but yeah, I think that gives everybody a good idea of where we are and how we got here.

Rose Duncan  8:26 

That’s awesome. That’s such a cool, just grassroots story. And for anybody listening. You can do that, too, guys, like use your passions, follow it, go talk about things with your friends, you can actually pursue it like, people do it, it happens and you never know the kind of influence that you’re going to make. So that’s, that’s really awesome. And then I guess, with the transition to the climate justice and the social justice aspect that we’ve made, we’ve been doing some really cool projects and applying to some really awesome grants. So I’m gonna throw it over to Sam. And Steph, if you want to elaborate more on that, because these are the two girls that have been behind driving this force with our grants and our outreach and huge shout out to the two of you.

Samantha Casey  9:11 

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, Rose, and yeah, thanks, Manvi for that review of SUTE. Honestly, I love hearing it. Every time you share about, like the story of SUTE I don’t know. It’s so inspiring. And it kind of reminds me of like, why we’re here, and the transformation it’s gone through because we because it really is still such a new organization. But yeah, it’s pretty incredible to look back and see like all that we’ve done over the past even year like what do we mean through a global pandemic, still in a global pandemic, and yet we’ve I think, become closer than ever as like an organization like all of our members which I think is a huge part of SUTE too, it has really kind of created that community with really cool, youth activists. I’m excited for this podcast, to kind of show the conversations that we have on a regular basis behind the scenes. To give people that look. But going on to kind of some of the neat things that we’ve done. I mean, last summer was was really fun. And I think the word was pivot that all of us have used? I think we pivoted, like pretty hard. Because we were so ready. Like, I remember Stephanie came on our team, we were like, ready for like in person events, we were like getting ready. Oh, my goodness, they’re gonna be everywhere, like SUTE’s gonna be at all these events, you’re gonna see us, can’t wait to talk to all these people, and tell them all about our work. And then the pandemic hit. And we were like, “How on earth are we gonna, like mobilize people virtually, like what’s going on?” And we’re all like, what’s happening. But I mean, that’s kind of also a neat thing about the youth climate movement because it’s so online, I think the virtual thing of it, if anything, has just accelerated the youth movement. With Slack like, you can get so much done on Slack. Our slack game, like I always love watching emails come in, I get them on Monday morning of our Slack like weekly highlights and the amount of messages we send, and like the DM’s and the group chat messages, it’s pretty, it’s pretty fun to see. Yeah, we’re definitely committed to this virtual space like this kind of reality because we’re like, how are we going to engage people on this topic, especially now more than ever, I think we were we were seeing how all the like inequalities in the in the social issues and the justice issues that were coming as the pandemic was kind of revealing them and we were just like, oh this is perfect,  this is a perfect time to show how those links so well to climate change, we are living in two crisises right now. And so we have pivoted to online. So last summer, we ended up running movers and shakers, which was really fun. And I asked her to shout it to Stephanie because I don’t know I ever would have done it without her. It was really cool. We had like 30 youth from like across what is currently Canada coming together and we did a bunch of like mentorship sessions with other really cool youth and like really cool working professionals doing a ton of stuff like out to Dylan from Water First, Melina from Youth 4 Nature. So many cool people like I still think about a lot of those conversations and a lot of those like points too, so it was a huge thing for I think all of us at SUTE, just hearing about the other really cool work happening and creating those connections with movers and shakers was awesome. Yeah, we met Dr. Waldron, that was so amazing. We had Dr. Waldron on, Dr. Waldron came and gave a kind of like a private talk to all the people in the Movers and Shakers program, which was super fun. It was just such a kind of impactful way because it was able to kind of create that arbitral community in a time when we were obviously more distant than ever, with people across the country. So that was really fantastic. And now we’re in touch with a lot of them, or a lot of them joined Shake Up the Establishment! So quite a few of our members joined after Movers and Shakers, and it was really fun. And we have to give a huge shoutout, it was a rising youth grant through taking a global and Canadian service corps that we were able to fund that. So like the participants got like cool climate justice and social justice books, there’s just tons of really good conversations and a lot of like communicating happening, which is always what we want to see. We are turning it into an event series this summer. So this summer, it will be more of an open call for people to attend. Now that it’s been a full year into the pandemic, I think now more than ever, we do need to keep those conversations going and keep our energy high, which I think we get out of all the events we have with other youth. But I’ll pass it off to Steph who can maybe share a bit more.

Stephanie Rosen  13:31 

Yeah, absolutely Sam. Thanks so much for sharing a little bit about our Movers and Shakers program. It was definitely a highlight of my last summer. And I’m really looking forward to Movers and Shakers this summer, which I think it’s so important to mention will incorporate our Active Learning Club. Essentially what our Active Learning Club is, is a set of resources on specific topics that enable our readers and also our team members to have those uncomfortable yet so important conversations across a variety of social justice issues. So I’m really excited. I think that’s going to be a really core component of our Movers and Shakers program this summer. When we transitioned to a more justice-oriented organization, the opportunities became endless. We had so many other organizations reaching out to us and they were we were excited, but also others were so excited about what we were doing. One thing that comes to mind is we were actually invited to be a part of the national anti-environmental racism coalition led by Dr. Ingrid Waldron. And that’s just been such an amazing space to amplify initiatives that other organizations are doing. And Dr. Ingrid Waldron has done such amazing work and to be able to amplify her initiatives among so many other organizations that are working on pressing topics such as environmental racism has been such an amazing opportunity. So yeah, when we transitioned to climate justice, it was amazing for us, but also, so many other organizations seem to vibe with what we were, what we were putting out and how we transitioned to such an important issue.

Rose Duncan  15:15 

Listening to you guys talk about all these, like incredible initiatives and the things that you’ve worked on, and what you enjoyed, that’s got me, I’m gonna leave some space here, I want to talk to other members, we’ve got like, what 33 members of SUTE now – awesome team members that are all volunteering their time, way more than they are asked to do. It’s incredible. Everybody goes above and beyond. So just leaving some space here for us to hear from some people in the rest of the departments. And you can hear a little bit more about who’s in SUTE and what they’ve been working on and what they love about being part of the organization.

Rachel Howlett  15:58 

My name is Rachel and I’m a researcher on the politics team. I love being a part of SUTE because I get to work with so many passionate people from coast to coast on important issues surrounding climate justice.

Erin Appelbe  16:11 

Hi, I’m Erin, I’m part of the communications department here at SUTE as a marketing and communications assistant. I love being a part of this organization because I get to work with passionate like minded people, who care about environmental justice.

Aarisha Elvi Haider  16:29 

Hi, my name is Aarisha, and I’m the politics research manager at Shake Up the Establishment. I find SUTE to be a safe space for me to share my ideas, and I feel recognized and belonged. SUTE has done an incredible job opening up exciting opportunities for us to interact with the climate change movement, I have to say they’re really shaking things up.

Rose Duncan  16:55 

While the rest of this podcast is going to be really focused, you’re gonna hear about lots of interesting topics related to climate, climate justice, we’re taking this one a little, a little back, keep it a little more casual, just chatting. And OK, somebody told me how you deal with environment like with activism burnout, and I guess, feeling overwhelmed by the current situation and being able to stay motivated as an activist, as a youth activist? How do you handle it yourself? How do you do it?

Manvi Bhalla  17:25 

I just feel like you have to laugh about it, you have to laugh about it. There’s no way out. Unless you laugh about it. It sucks. everything sucks. Part of that is probably because most of the year I’m depressed. So maybe it’s easier for me to like laugh at stuff but but I just think you have to laugh and you have to make time for joy, or you’re never going to want to do this work. I have definitely quote unquote “quit” so many times. I hate activism really, I think we shouldn’t need it. But I do community organizing, because I love community. I love community building. I love supporting community where policy fails to do so. And centering community and joy can make this a better space to be in. Otherwise, why do you want to work in spaces that are oppressive or adding to existing, you know, like we already live in a capitalist society, we don’t need organizing to be another version of that. Yeah, so

Rose Duncan  18:21 

It shouldn’t have to be work at all.

Manvi Bhalla  18:24 

While you’re doing it voluntarily, if you’re not feeding into the nonprofit industrial complex, I believe in ethically compensating people for their time and efforts. But there’s also a role for allies to play if you are privileged enough, for example, like myself, I’ve always said this: When I was growing up, we had no money. But when we came into it, when I came into a position in my life where I was privileged enough to be able to volunteer my time, that’s a way that I perform distributive justice. So absolutely, I’m gonna volunteer my time. I do I do take in money when there’s things that I’m doing that are like, like EDI stuff, cuz I’m like, Whoa, you can pay me for that. But if it’s for young people, if it’s for women, if it’s for BIPOC, if it’s for LGBTQ2Spirit+, if it’s for historically oppressed groups, I’m doing it for free. That’s my form of distributive justice, I can always donate money, so I donate time. But I also think like, in those spaces, you don’t have to be sad all the time. So you can definitely and that’s why we have a channel. We have so many channels. We have one channel called positive vibes, we just share stuff. Yeah, I think it keeps the morale up.

Rose Duncan  19:28 

I totally agree. Like and as youth like we’re not always in the position where we are able to donate our money to causes and I, I know money talks because capitalism, but like, we’re not in those spaces necessarily to be able to do that. So you’re right, being able to donate your time to groups where you’re redistributing justice and redistributing the wealth, that that’s so great, but sharing those positive things and like having those like just a happy-go-lucky and funny, stupid things that you share that kind of just lighten the mood, and remind you about why you’re doing it and not just having like, the heavy injustices weigh on you is so important, especially when you’re starting out as a youth activist. I know when I first joined the space like, Yeah, I got involved. I was not I wouldn’t call myself an activist though. But I was I was involved in, I was aware in joining SUTE and the rest of you and the team really highlighted, like how balanced you have to take this, like, if you need a week, take a break. Like let your mind relax for a second, you don’t have to have this be heavy on you all the time. And saying that with privilege, because I can I can say that, but also acknowledging like, how can I help those who maybe don’t have the privilege of not having it weigh on them.

Stephanie Rosen  20:41 

Finding the meaningful activities that we can do as an organization, but making them fun? Specifically, I remember hand writing 30 valentines for our Valentine’s Day fundraiser. And honestly, it was so much fun, because I knew it was for a good cause. And, and a team member had designed the valentines and we were sending them out to the people who wanted to support us. And so to others it may have seemed like work, but for me, it was just the time of my life. I remember, you know, just sitting for hours just like writing some Valentines and yeah, it was just it was so great. So finding those activities that as an organization that you actually want to do and find joy in, it just it makes a world of difference. So we definitely do that at SUTE making sure our volunteers are doing things that they’re passionate about.

Manvi Bhalla  21:33 

Yeah, I just want to jump off and say thank you so much to Stephanie for sending all of those out and then resending the ones that got lost out she is the bread and butter of the webstore. And so is Sam because Sam, Stephanie commented, just so people don’t people don’t have the chat. She said I actually loved it. She’s being honest. She actually, she posts like small business inspo photos in our positive vibes SLACK, ya I’m exposing you, Stephanie. She would like do like a flatlay. It was like gorgeous. We were so proud. And she has the neatest handwriting. So when it came down to it, I have the messiest and it was not going to happen. I was willing to spend the time but I was just like, yeah, it’s just not gonna happen. So thank you so much, Stephanie for that. And also for Sam and you for like mailing everything out all the time. If you order something, it comes through their loving hands. So go go get something. So they can send it to you. Ya the coolest slow embroidered or slow fashion hand embroidered sweaters for my BFF saffron and I want to buy one, but they’re literally there’s only three. And I feel like I already have so much SUTE merch, like I don’t know, I feel like we should spread the love. And I also think that like they’re collector’s items, almost like I wanted, like they’re gorgeous. But yeah, just shout out to that as well.

We talked about the SUTE, pivot or reform or whatever. And there’s these great critical conversations we were having at like SUTE which was like, who deserves to be in leadership and who doesn’t. Everybody else was kind of like, I will do whatever I need to do to support and amplify and John and Sam, and Tina, and I don’t know why it took so long to say the execs we were all like we would step down if somebody better needed to come into place. And that’s how the board decided who was going to be the execs because everybody, it wasn’t it wasn’t to say people need to quit. But I think real ally ship is knowing like, what you can offer and then knowing that there’s spaces for other people. And John was the first one though that said it I definitely, he said it before I even conceptualized it. Because we were given a week to think about our positionality in leadership within the organization and to see like what we want to see for the future of SUTE, even including of us and outside of us. And he was the first he just messaged, I think he messaged me, right away. And he was like, I don’t even think about it. Like I’m happy to just be demoted. And I was like, well, it’s not your lucky day there. Because you’re also one of the only people that can do every single thing. You are the biggest support ally. He does everything. He’s such a good he’s a model ally. So I feel so safe being a woman of color working with John. So big love to John, for doing all the work.

Samantha Casey  24:33 

Yeah, no, it’s so true, though. Um, yeah. John, huge shout out to John. But also, yeah, there’s so many cool people that have just gravitated to Shake up the Establishment too which has been so cool. Like, we have a really cool welcome to Slack channel on the Shake up the Establishments like Slack and oh, my goodness, the people in this organization are so cool. Like, I always read people’s bios and I’m like, Oh my goodness, like these are people I would never have met if I wasn’t a part of Shake up the Establishment, but like they’re the coolest people ever, and I think that’s what’s really neat about Shake up the Establishment too I guess it’s kind of back to the burnout piece but also just how neat everyone is, but ya it is, it’s having like, so many people that have different roles in the climate movement working so well together is so important. And I think people being like self aware of like the space they’re taking up and like, and that as well as being is being huge at Shake up the Establishment and too like with SUTE, I think a huge reason that I love it and like, why I stay and like, and like love it here so much is Yeah, everyone’s just having those really critical conversations, but then also like vibing, and laughing and connecting with each other and, and seeing each other for the amazing work that they do. And, and it’s like holding each other accountable. But in that way, creating community with each other, which is just super fun. And it’s such a cool space. Like, I wish we I wish we I wish a lot of the things that we were doing were kind of like everywhere, like I wish, like positionality statements like when new members come on. And I guess this will be something if you are looking to join Shake up the Establishment, but like creating a positionality statement, which was a huge thing. I know Manvi you were like instrumental in having those created and a huge part of our onboarding. But like that’s something so incredible now, because it’s something that everyone has to go forward with. So whenever they’re in other spaces, they can like think back like, oh, like in Shake up the Establishmentwe we’ve like done these and we see each other’s and it’s just such a great way to like connect. Yeah, so much cool stuff happening. And so many cool people at SUTE. I can’t get over it, like I work with the coolest people.

Manvi Bhalla  26:35 

Yeah, I also want to say you mentioned like building community and like that, I know that it’s our public values, but we we always reflected inwad before we do outward, like at SUTE. So if our four values are, like youth led, nonpartisan, community centered and evidence informed, um, but yeah, no, everything was really important. Sam, like you said, it’s community centered. So we really, really, really, really, really work on our relationships with each other so much. And I think that’s so important. And so I guess one of the things that I’ll leak, I don’t know why I’m like leaking all the secrets. But we literally play we’re not really strangers in our directors meetings every week, like we always kick off with, with at least like one question or whatever. Because we think it’s so important to just like, build that, like, how can you you’re working with somebody you’ve never actually met in person, you’ve never had opportunities to hang out with them. Like, every meeting is an opportunity to build a connection. And it’s crazy how much we can learn about people. And that improves our work with them almost, because then if I’m having a bad day, and I don’t have the emotional capacity to write like five nice things before I give feedback, they know that I don’t hate them. It’s just I’m tired. And we can hold space for people’s like work and emotional and mental boundaries, and all those, all those good things. So it just it’s good to know the people you work with. And to treat them like family, like we always refer to the organization team members as like family. And I think that that is what I’m most proud of. I gave an interview for a podcast, so not not this one. But for a podcast for young people, I think a couple weeks ago or last week, and they asked me what is the thing that I’m most proud of? And I was like the work culture at SUTE, like I’ve never said it. The quickest answer I ever gave, I was like, and they were like, not any of the other – I was like literally nothing else. Like, this is the biggest thing that I’m most proud of. And something that we work on every day, we are always working on improving, it’s never perfect. But as long as that conversation and communication, like is open and happening and transparency is happening, and we’re centering love, then like it’s so great. It’s such a great place to be why would you ever not want to be in this weird virtual workspace? Um, you know, so?

Stephanie Rosen  28:45 

Yeah, following up with that Manvi, I think that’s so important. And it’s just such a safe and just enjoyable space to be in. But also the amount of experience that myself and among other youth have gained from being a part of this organization, it’s just crazy, I’m pretty sure, I would have just like, I could have like a SUTE resume, it would just be like three pages based on all the stuff I’ve done at SUTE as a part of the organization. And I think that’s so important, because we’re also giving so many people a chance to do cool things, to manage websites, manage social media and apply for federal grants. So it’s just such an amazing opportunity for all our volunteers as well. And I think it’s so amazing that we have that environment as a part of SUTE.

Samantha Casey  29:31 

Yes, it’s so true. And I think I’ll give another shout out to Stephanie and I feel like this podcast episode has become all warm and fuzzy. But no, it’s so true. This at Shake up the Establishment, like I have grown so much I think in terms of my leadership skills, and what I’ve learned and unlearned, and then and then to Yeah, like the opportunities and things that you take on and I think this goes to Yeah, even just like youth climate groups and organizations like we do grant application And like they’re huge. And it’s like all of us working together putting in like these massive, massive grants like Stephanie, we throw you on the budget and you get it done. But you would have thought you were an accountant, like an accounting major, but here you are just working away. And yeah, it’s it’s incredible to see again, like what people are capable or even like, Steph, you have the opportunity to like run, like, run our web store, like, when else would you be able to say that you’ve done that or like know that you like doing that? If it wasn’t for volunteering and getting involved SUTE, like a small business boss right there. Yeah, Stephanie is literally the one running the Web Store. It’s, it’s awesome. But ya no, there’s so many cool things. And that’s also what’s really neat about Shake up the Establishment is like the flexibility too, like we obviously as long as it stays in line with our mandate and our vision. But there’s so many new things where it’s like, we find grants like, okay, like so what project are we gonna do for this, and like we have the ability to like, think and like bring our own solutions and like these really cool youth led solutions. We’re not super rigid and strict and rigid and I don’t even know what the word would be, I guess rigid, sums it up nicely there, which is really fun because I think we have so much ability for people to bring in like their own passions and interests. I think that really speaks too to climate justice. There’s so many intersections like we have people that are really interested in public health, like we’re applying for public health grants, like that lens is being brought in, or people are interested in biodiversity conservation. And like we’re now we’re doing really cool stuff in biodiversity conservation. Yeah, it’s just a really cool space to be in because there’s that opportunity, which is really fun. And we’re not just we’re not just like a climate organization, we’re like all of these really cool, different intersections. So yeah, it’s been super sick. But yeah, I would definitely give a huge shout out to Stephanie because the amount of times we have just thrown her on the grant, and being like, by the way, this is due like tomorrow, finish this massive grant thanks – which is awesome. Any so many of other members, is gonna be super fun.

Stephanie Rosen  31:59 

Yeah, I thanks for the shout out everyone. I feel the need to shout out everyone here as well. Because honestly, Sam and Rose and Manvi and so many other people have been instrumental in just creating that positive work environment that I want to be a part of, and the amount of hours they have put into making sure volunteers are supported and, and that this organization is a place that people want to be, I just feel like, they need infinite shout outs. So I just want to put that out there.

Manvi Bhalla  32:28 

I also think too, something that Stephanie and I have had converstions – not to expose our dm’s Stephanie, I’m exposing a lot – I just think it’s important to be transparent, too. We’ve had some great conversations about like, young people in leadership, like, I don’t want to, like, I know, we’ve used the word pivot, it’s become like the word of this, maybe the title should be pivot haha. Um, but no Steph, you and I have had some great conversations too about like the imposter syndrome that’s so real in spaces and like something that I told Stephanie and maybe Steph, you can comment on kind of your interpretation, and maybe your thoughts as well as being on the other end of my spiels. Someone needs to shut me up. But, um, no, I always say I’m like, Well, if we follow the same models, that corporate structures follow, or institutional structures follow where there is a precedence and hierarchy, and like this preference given to people with institutional degrees, or age or experience, we’re never going to build the future. Because the thing that builds futures is passion, you know, you can become an expert in anything, you just have to, you have to learn about it. You know, you have to dedicate time, effort, energy, and that’s all fueled by your, your intrinsic motivation, your passion, you know. Volunteering in and of itself is completely internally motivated, if it’s meaningful, because, you know, as long as you’re doing it for the right reasons, you’re doing it because you want to do it. And you’re always open to learning, you’re always open to engaging and that’s the kind of screening we do at SUTE, anyone is welcome in our space if they’re actually here, to contribute to the movement, you know, and get us to a point where we no longer need spaces like this so stringently, where we can, we won’t depend on spaces like this existing, we can just exist and have spaces like this. But something that people often feel in organizations is that in order to seem legit, we need to have the most qualified people in charge. We need to have people with institutional degrees, experience. CV’s on CV’s, references, we don’t do any of that. We don’t care, you know, as long as you’re ready to learn and ready to be in our space.

Stephanie Rosen  34:30 

Yeah, absolutely. That’s something I definitely learned. And I think that’s, you know, I definitely had big imposter syndrome when I was taking on more responsibility. And I was like, how there’s definitely someone that could better do the role that I’m doing right now. But I think that’s just that’s what SUTE has embodied is youth development and making sure that we can diminish that imposter syndrome as best as possible, and especially being a volunteer organization. It’s so important that we value the passion that people bring in over their experience. And if you get the, if you get the right amount of passion, we can do anything, and Yes, exactly. Now I’m an accountant and a small business owner. So who knows what’s next in store for me? But yeah, it’s just so important that we value passion over that institutional experience. And I think that’s definitely something we’ve reflected in our recruitment practices as well. Yeah, that’s all I’ll say – passion over experience.

Rose Duncan  35:33 

I think that also lends into like, that concept that we talk about a lot is like, we’re here working to not have to work anymore. Like we’re not, we’re not here for a long term job where, we want to not have to do this type of work anymore. So like that passion, and youth bringing that in and into the space, really helps drive this forward. And we hope, sooner than later, we no longer need to yeah, we’re here for not a long time. But here for a good time. Exactly. I think that’s what this work should be.

Manvi Bhalla  36:02 

We should we should just quote every Tinder ****Boy (you can bleep that, Right?) If SUTE was on Tinder, our bio would definitely be “here for a good time, not a long time.” But yeah, no, I mean, other people have cool ideas for us to #connect with other people in the community. We would love that if other than tik tok too, if there’s any cool ideas, projects, grants email [email protected]

Rose Duncan  36:31 

Yeah, yeah, reach out, let us know like for anything that we could work on, if you think we could have an awesome collaboration or partnership, even if there’s just something you want to hear us talk about in future podcast episodes, like, we’re just riding this train. This is so flexible, we want to know there’s a space on our website, and you can tell us what you want to hear about, like who you want to hear us talk to if there’s a specific topic you want to hear us address. Let us know that. Maybe you want to be on our podcast – let us know what you’d like to hear about. And then think bigger think how we can collaborate, what grants can we work on together? What would you like, what work do you want to see us do? This is a community organization and you can still be a participant, even if you’re not a direct volunteer of SUTE, which you’re welcome to become, apply. We still want to hear what you think, we still want you to be a part of everything that we’re doing.

Manvi Bhalla  37:22 

I was going to say too, on that note, it would be interesting to like, as we probably begin to wrap up here about like, where we want to go, like, I don’t know why I said that so weird. But yeah, where we want to go and like what we envision or what we can what people can expect, I guess in the next, in this year. I don’t we don’t plan that far ahead. People are always like, what are your quarterly goals? And I’m like, this week we are doing this. Next week?I don’t know. We’re trying to make it. We’re just trying to make it. We’re all young people just trying to Yeah, to quote Samantha Casey in this zoom chat, “survive”. Because life’s uh life’s a toughy. But um, we’d love to hear from other people what everyone’s like fave thing that they want to see happen this year that we know of so far is or maybe something that we have planned. If we want to tease anything.

Samantha Casey  38:09 

I can go and then I will, I will pass it off. But I was gonna say what I would love to see more of is more grant acceptances. I think we’ll definitely be putting in more grants. We’ve gotten and I don’t want to spill the beans, maybe Steph can spill it or we’ll just put that as a tease, for a future maybe podcast episode, we’ll explain a bit more about something really fun coming up in the future. Yeah, more grant acceptances. Because I think as a youth climate org, and youth organizations in general can relate to the feeling of putting in so many grant applications. So definitely be putting in more, hopefully getting more acceptances, because those acceptance emails hit different. The celebration, the ritual celebration, hits different. So I’ll definitely be doing more of those. And again, another plug to movers and shakers, that is something really fun to look forward to later this summer. And again, that’s a great opportunity. If you are part of an organization and you’re like, Hey, we want to do something this summer, and we need more capacity, or you just want to collaborate. We’re definitely open to collaborations for that. So definitely reach out to us. And then yeah, I think that’ll be kind of what I’m looking forward to for the rest of the year in terms of development. And then again, also with our web store. We’ll be having more stuff on there. We have some cool stuff and I will drop it, this will be a secret drop here for the people listening to this podcast – but we will have something really fun coming up soon called Shakers and Makers, which will be a super cool initiative that involves our webstore and supporting local creators and artists and artisans. So definitely something to look forward to. I think that’s, that’s probably going to be something I’m super looking forward to – my bank account probably not so much because I do have a hard time not buying everything we make… But yeah, that’s something I’m looking forward to. I’ll pass it off to Rose or Steph to follow.

Rose Duncan 40:06

I can jump in. I have a few awesome things coming out of the research department. We’ve got our political research team working on some really helpful primers. I know there has been buzz about upcoming elections – so don’t you worry we are on it. Linking right back to the beginning of SUTE, like charts and tables that really outline, we’re making more primers. We’re going to keep you in the know, not get you, keep you in the know. You’re going to know everything there is about non-partisan climate and social justice, coming into this next election whenever that may be. And, we’ve also got this really awesome, we’re starting our own research, like I think it’s SUTE’s ever primary research project. We’re working on carbon pricing, carbon offsets, I think by the time this publishes survey is gonna be out. It’s called Carbon Knowledge Series. Shoutout to Acacia whose idea it was, and she’s really been driving it home.

Stephanie Rosen 40:59

Ya, I’m really excited for this summer as well, Movers and Shakers. I’m just trying to think of all the amazing things. I think one part, as Sam said, not to spill the beans – we did get a grant acceptance, which was so amazing. I remember telling my mom and she was like “Oh ya congrats”, and then I saw the channel in SUTE and everyone was like screaming and it was uh Yeah. So SUTE is just so excited about those grant acceptances, but we’re looking at expanding the podcast and supporting initiatives in the greenbelt. And so that we can teach folks and youth and get more people involved about visiting the greenbelt and, and why it’s so important. So just as a cute FYI for that project coming up.

Manvi Bhalla 41:46

I think I’m most excited. I’m so surprised no one has mentioned this yet. I feel like I was sitting on a secret but I’m not. Oh I am! Technically we haven’t told anybody publicly about it. So I guess, I don’t know if I should. I’m just gonna say it and like, we can cut this out. Right? If we don’t want to give it we’ll get it out. But if we keep it in, if you hear if you’re hearing this and we kept it in, you know. Okay Sam says drop it like it’s hot. I’m gonna drop it. We have a cool, amazing project coming out called Writing History. You have to go follow the Instagram. If you’ve heard this and we decided to keep it in you have to go, it’s an imperative to go follow @rightinghistory. But like it’s spelled “righting history” on Instagram. Um, no but Righting History is our love child. And it is launching. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t I don’t know. I feel like I should just leave it at that. I won’t say anything more about Righting History. I think I’ve already said more than enough. So go check out Righting History on Instagram on Twitter. It’s gonna be live soon, there’s probably gonna be a countdown clock or something, because we haven’t officially figured everything out yet. But that’s how things work. So soon, we will figure it out. And you will also be a part of it. So just go follow.

Manvi Bhalla 43:04

When you think Establish what do you think? I think in Slack, we had like the 50 millions channel we’ve made for a specific topic. Oh, God, like, it was like “project podcast should we rebrand the name, like I don’t know”, or something. The title is very long. Because we’re at the point now where we have so many channels for specific things, we have to be extremely specific. And I’m pretty sure Rose you made it and even said something like, I don’t know or like not sure, it said the word not sure in the title. But we had to think of a new name. We had so many cool ideas. Like, I won’t say the cool ideas, because what if we end up doing one of them in the future, but the one we settled on was Establish, and I think it was, might have been me might have been somebody else, and somebody was like, Establish Oh, it was definitely me because I was being corny, but I was like, Establish the Facts, Establish. I forget the other stuff that I said, but like, what do you guys think of when you hear the name? Like why did we, why do you like that we chose this name.

Rose Duncan 44:02

I think we get to like there’s so many things that we can help Establish, like everything we do is unlearning and relearning. And we can use that information that we’re taking in, in our platform to like help establish safe spaces, help establish knowledge, help establish understanding. And just like there’s establishing so many different areas of climate justice and climate activism that we can touch upon.

Stephanie Rosen 44:30

Yeah, I’m in the same boat as you Rose. So many things that we can establish. I mean, it works perfectly with our organization name, Shake up the Establishment. But I think establishing so many new things, establishing a positive volunteering culture, establishing positive and loving relationships between volunteers, and just establishing the facts in general and making sure that we’re sharing important and valuable information.

Samantha Casey 44:54

Yeah, it was my number one choice. I remember on the poll on the Slack channel, I was like, Yeah, it sounds really cool. And yeah, I definitely remember thinking of it, because it’s kind of like the other side, like, I guess it really has that side of like shaking up the existing structures, and like, the existing establishment, and then in a new sense, kind of, on the other end of that, too, like creating new things. So like establishing new things. So like, we’re shaking it up, and then building new, which is, I think, like, exactly what the youth climate movement is doing. Yeah, really creating, creating new spaces, creating or establishing issues, or I shouldn’t say creating, establishing new spaces, establishing new ways of thinking, establishing new conversations out of out of the old, so we’re shaking it up and then and then establishing. So yeah, that’s definitely why I voted for it. Also, because it’s super catchy and easy to say. So I was so for it. And I do love our super long name Shake up the establishment, which is very iconic and very, very much our brand. And I do, I do like the shorter the shorter word.

Rose Duncan 45:59

Yeah, you can’t just you can’t just break down a system, which is what we’re working to do. We got to come with solutions. We got to come with a new way to like, what’s the new system we want establish? I feel like that kind of ties in.

Manvi Bhalla 46:10

Um, yeah, no, Rose. I totally agree with you. And it’s interesting. I think at the core of it, what you’re kind of getting at and I love it, is we’re creating spaces for transformative, we’re making space for transformative environments. And we’re, I think the cool thing is, we’re kind of moving in, we’re manifesting our future. I mean, I just don’t know how else to put it. You’re just manifesting the world you want to live in. Let’s establish that.

Rose Duncan 46:53

Thank you to Greg Markov for donating his time in music. All music, you hear in this episode are Greg’s original compositions. Please show him some love @gregmarkov on Instagram, that’s @gregmarkov on Instagram. This episode was hosted by Rose, Manvi, Sam, and Steph of shake up the establishment. It was edited by me, Rose Duncan, with assistance from Manvi Bhalla and John O’Connor. We thank you for listening, and we’ll see you soon.