Date: February 11, 1-2 PM ET
Cost: Free (Zoom Webinar)
* Please note, all registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following the sessions. The recording will be available for 60 days. Registrants will also be linked to a short, practical resource package summarizing AisB’s Youth Friendly recommendations, key concepts, and links to tools.
Drawing heavily on Apathy is Boring’s Youth Friendly resources and experiences, Sydney Penner and Erika De Torres explore how environmental non-governmental organizations can move beyond tokenism to engage young people meaningfully. They will introduce practical strategies to share power, co-create initiatives, and design programs and governance structures that are responsive to youth needs, experiences, and leadership.
The session will help participants:
- Increase their understanding of meaningful youth engagement and how to clearly identify genuine youth-centred approaches
- Develop greater readiness to share power with youth and a stronger commitment to integrating youth into decision-making, program design, and/or governance structures within their ENGO.
- Briefly explore concrete tools, examples, and reflection questions to help assess how youth-friendly their organization truly is and identify next steps to embed youth voice at every level of their work.
- Use an action/reflection worksheet completed during or after the session, prompting attendees to assess how youth-friendly their current work is and to note 2–3 concrete next steps for embedding youth voice in their organization.
Participants will also receive information on a subsequent series of three workshops (March 4, 11, 18) through Sustainability Network and how to apply for a customized “Leaf it to Us” organizational review.
Erika De Torres is the Director of Impact at Apathy is Boring, where she leads the Research and Development Team and the Youth Friendly Initiative. She finished a Master’s in Political Science from McGill University, where she was interested in examining the impact of context on political preferences. She sat on the Advisory Council for Canada’s first Youth Climate Citizens’ Assembly in 2025, and currently serves as vice-chair of Simon Fraser University’s Alumni Council.
Sydney Penner is the Research and Evaluations Lead at Apathy is Boring. Following her degree in Psychology from Simon Fraser University, she has worked in both clinical mental health and addictions and non-profit social sciences research. She has led studies examining the intersection between disability and workplace health and wellness, and emerging trends in Canada's young workforce. She is passionate about Participatory Action Research (PAR) and interdisciplinary methods, and community-based knowledge translation and mobilization.
The DEFNP workshop series will offer tailored programming designed to match ENGOs on their decolonial (un)learning journeys. In Spring 2026 members of the ENGO sector will be able to choose one of three workshop tracks: Introduction to Decolonization in the ENGO Sector, Advanced Decolonial Theory and Application or For Indigenous Ears Only - A Space for Reflection and Action. Each series consists of four three-hour sessions.
Collectively, Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships fosters:
Awareness of settler colonialism and the ways it potentially harnesses civil society;
Understanding about how Canadian law such as the Indian Act and the Income Tax Act has suppressed Indigenous governance systems;
Awareness that Indigenous peoples have unique inherent political and legal systems, with which ENGOs may want to form partnerships;
A better understanding about how to navigate partnerships with Indigenous communities that promote decolonial environmentalism;
A stronger sense about how to identify and explain individual and organization social locations (i.e. positionalities) as part of ethical partnership development;
Promoting the resurgence of Indigenous self-determination in the Canadian ENGO sector.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
70 participants max.
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101
Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.
Session 2: Positionality
ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.
Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101
Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.
Session 4: Building Better Relations
ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector
Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.
Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance
A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.
Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.
Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships
This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.
Cost: Free
The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.
Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector
Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector
Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector
Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector
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