Building Community Resilience & Bee Awareness in the age of COVID-19
In May, Earth Guardians published a blog post about the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians crew. That post detailed the actions these inspired young activists had been taking to support Wet'suwet'en land defenders, their learning about regenerative permaculture design and their plans, many of which were put on pause because of the COVID-19 pandemic, for the months to come.
When we last checked in with the Cowichan Valley Crew, they had been spending months excitedly preparing for a ‘World Bee Day celebration’ on May 23rd. This event was to be held in collaboration with a number of local organizations and experts in their community, and was going to feature
A beekeeping workshop with 14 year-old crew member Indigo Robinson
A seminar about supporting wild bee populations with locally renowned bee-expert Ted Leischner
A seed-swap
Informational booths about pollinators
A painting of a celebratory bee-themed mural in Kin Park in Duncan where the event was to be held.
Unfortunately, even the most well thought out plans can go awry. When COVID-19 evolved from an epidemic in Asia to a full-fledged pandemic during the month of April, the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians crew had to come to terms with the fact that they would not be holding a World Bee Day celebration at any time in the near future.
The Cowichan Valley Crew was also forced to make the decision to cancel all other planned events in order to comply with government regulations and keep their community safe. Crew member Jasmine Hachey has said:
“The disappointment I experienced was immense. It felt like all our time and effort to plan community events was wasted. It also hurt to think that some of these events might not even end up taking place in the future.”
But in the weeks that preceded and followed the World Bee Day celebration that would’ve been, the Cowichan Valley Crew found creative alternatives to creating change and building community resiliency that they may not have thought of if not for the challenge that COVID-19 presented them with. Crew leader Katia Bannister reiterated her thoughts about the coronavirus pandemic and activism:
“I think that COVID-19 has been a test of our creativity and our resiliency as activists and organizers. We haven't been able to create change in the ways we’ve become familiar with, we’ve had to think beyond that, and challenge ourselves further to create meaningful change.”
Throughout the pandemic lockdown, the Cowichan Valley Crew has tried a plethora of ways to ensure that their community stayed engaged and that change remained at the forefront of everyone’s minds. These Cowichan Valley activists have been digital striking online during the pandemic, hosting and participating in webinars about climate and social activism and running social media campaigns to great success - but in the back of the minds of all members of the Cowichan Valley crew was World Bee Day, the fantastic community event that couldn't be brought to fruition.
While the Cowichan Valley Crew tried to celebrate World Bee Day in May despite the pandemic, it was difficult for it to feel the same as the event that they had planned. But on World Bee Day on May 20th, the Cowichan Valley Crew released a video on their IGTV and Facebook pages, featuring crew member Indigo Robinson speaking about her experiences with bees and beekeeping.
The video presentation included many elements and themes that the workshop Indigo would’ve taught at the World Bee Day celebration. Even though the Cowichan Valley Crew had done their best to celebrate World Bee Day amid the chaos and fear, members still wondered about the possibility of finding a way to commemorate what their World Bee Day would’ve been if not for the pandemic.
An opportunity for this arose when Crew Leader Katia Bannister began her summer job at Kin Park Youth Urban Farm in Duncan, the same place where the World Bee Day event would’ve been held. Kin Park Youth Urban Farm is a youth-led urban agriculture demonstration site and working farm, based on the principles of permaculture and organic agriculture. The farm seeks to:
Train diverse youth in food production and entrepreneurship
Provide accessible and sustainable locally produced food to the Cowichan Valley community
Run educational programs for a diverse and intergenerational group of community members.
At Kin Park Youth Urban Farm, Katia is a Program Assistant for the SusTEENability Program at Kin Park Youth Urban Farm. This program seeks to empower self-identified girls between the ages of 13 and 18, teach them valuable life skills, provide them with opportunities to be creative and create a space for them to learn about urban agriculture. The youth involved in this program meetup weekly on Thursdays to participate in workshops that focus around entrepreneurialism, sustainability and creativity. It was these weekly workshops that gave Katia and her crew an idea which she quickly shared with her supervisors at Kin Park Youth Urban Farm. This idea was to use the SusTEENability Program at the park as a way to engage youth, including the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians Crew, around the creation of a bee-themed mural at Kin Park, the same mural that would’ve been painted during the World Bee Day event. The mural idea was a success and immediately the Cowichan Valley Crew began work on painting their pollinator themed mural in homage to the many bee species that make food production at Kin Park Youth Urban Farm, and around the world, possible.
In a mere three weeks, the mural project was brought to completion by many dedicated youth volunteers, including many of the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians. The experience of being able to finally create this mural has been a very meaningful one for all of the youth involved. Cowichan Valley Crew member Stephanine Lindstrom relayed
“Participating in the creation of the bee mural has cultivated a warm sense of community that I feel has been needed in these times. It has safely brought people together, and allowed us to express our creativity through creating a wonderful masterpiece. I have had tons of fun working at Kin Park with our crew.”
Katia Bannister is also excited about what has come out of the mural. “What amazes me,” she said, “is how much community has been built by the creation of this mural. We’ve had so many people come together to support us in working on it or even just stop by the park to see it or talk to us about it. Cowichan Green Community and Kin Park Youth Urban Farm have been huge supports for sure. But we’ve also had the girl who sold us paint at Home Hardware stop by to look at the mural, we’ve had neighbours come by to ask us questions, and even Ted Leischner, who was supposed to do a seminar for us at the World Bee Day event, came by to visit and express his appreciation. There has been so much that has come out of just this one mural.”
This mural project that has moved forward as an element of the Cowichan Valley Crew’s World Bee Day celebration that had to be cancelled due to COVID-19, shows that community resiliency, creativity, and meaningful actions can take place despite the pandemic we are currently facing. The work the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians, and other Earth Guardians around the world, are doing shows that COVID-19 does not mean pressing pause on taking action - it means focusing on strengthening our communities and creatively rethinking our actions in order to create change.
To learn more about the work that the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardians are doing and get inspired to take similar actions in your community, you can reach out to their Instagram account or Facebook accounts.