Hi Everyone,
In honor of the closing to Asian Heritage Month in Canada, I wanted to share a clip and a short documentary I came across this week showcasing environmental work by Asian/Asian diaspora women as "small planet heroes." The first one I saw on social media and it features Indian eco-feminist, scholar, and food sovereignty advocate Dr. Vanada Shiva. The clip is 3:51 minutes long. She completed her graduate work at the University of Guelph and Western University. One key moment for me is when she comments, "Working with our hands is not a degradation. It's our real humanity." She also connects us as a global food community and encourages young people to act from the ground up.
The second is a short CBC doc released in 2021 called "In Love with a Problem" (about 22 min long) featuring two Vancouver high school students, Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao, who engaged in microbial plastic pollution research as teenagers. They eventually graduated from university (McGill and U of Toronto respectively) to found a company (Biocellection) that continues that imperative work trans-nationally. It's an inspiring documentary with a youth-empowerment focus. There's a UBC connection, as the students were mentored by Dr. Lindsay Eltis. The documentary is available free on CBC Gem and also Youtube (link below).
Enjoy! :)