Green Calgary Introduces Our New Executive Director



Green Calgary has a new Executive Director we'd love for you to meet! Nirmala Naidoo is an award winning, veteran journalist who’s worked for Canadian, British, and American television networks. In 2016, she was considering a news position in Beijing, China, when something caused her passion for the environment to soar. She was told that if she moved to Beijing, her children would have to wear masks everyday due to pollution. She immediately thought, “How can I knowingly put my children into that situation?” Then she equally thought, “How can I knowingly live on this side of the planet, and NOT do anything to protect the environment?” After leaving journalism, Nirmala went on to be a senior manager at the Alberta Climate Change Office before becoming Executive Director at Green Calgary. As Nirmala writes:

My parents taught me that education is power and education is freedom. For decades, Green Calgary has done exactly that: empowering people through knowledge, to help us understand our influence on the planet and to learn about the necessary tools to make changes in the areas that matter most to us. 
It has been a challenging year for us at Green Calgary and we made the decision to refocus on what we do best. We have given up our physical Eco Store (we are still online!) and have moved to a smaller space upstairs of our building. But we have huge plans for the year ahead and need your continued support now, more than ever before.  
I also know that protecting the earth is not someone else’s job – it is OUR job – yours and mine. It starts with me, we, and us. 

This coming Tuesday is Giving Tuesday, a day when charities ask for support in response to the consumerism of Black Friday before. We hope you will consider supporting Green Calgary's mission by making a donation here...

Thank you!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hidden Gems of Calgary: Part 1

A little over a week ago, some of the Green Calgary staff went on a hike together to Twelve Mile Coulee as part of a team building exercise. While we were walking, between identifying birds or plants, we talked about Twelve Mile Coulee itself. Of our 6 participants, about half had been to Twelve Mile Coulee before, some more than others, and the other three had either only heard of it or not at all! So, naturally, we started to talk about other hidden gems in the city. Parkland or urban wild spaces that we've discovered or that we go to all the time, that others might not have heard of. What was impressive is that no one had complete knowledge of all the places mentioned. Some people knew more or less of these hidden gems of Calgary, but nobody knew all of them! We decided to share 5 with you in the Urban Park category, but we hope to continue the series later with other hidden gems of Calgary. Here are 5 hidden gems in Calgary: Parks Edition! 1. Twelve Mile Coulee: Of cour...
Read more

Got Tire(d) of Winter? Recycle Them!

Image
  With the 20cm of snow this week, many of us are switching out our old all-season tires for winter tires to ensure road safety and precent our vehicles from skidding off on icy roads. While average tires have five years lifespan and absolute replacement timeline of ten years, it is inevitable that many Calgarians will throw away tires at some point in our lifetime. Not sure what to do with your old ones? Take them to one of the three City of Calgary landfill sites for FREE recycling! h    Spyhill Landfill 11808 69 Street NW Mon-Sat 7:30am - 5pm   East Calgary Landfill 3801 - 68 Street SE Mon-Sat 7:30am - 5pm     Shepard Landfill 12111 -  68 Street SE Mon-Sat 8am - 5pm Life After Re(Tire)ment   Recycled tires are processed into crumbs and remade into new products such as shingles, playground tiles, sidewalks, and more! Have questions about recycling? Check out the City of Calgary What Goes Where for more information! 
Read more

The Little Green Library Reviews: The Sustainability Secret

The Little Green Library Reviews The Sustainability Secret By Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn Welcome to the Little Green Library Reviews! This year Green Calgary is looking to help you set and keep a green goal and part of that initiative is the new Little Green Library - a collection of materials for you to browse and borrow to enhance your knowledge of green life. To help you decide what to read from the library, our staff are writing reviews of the material. First up, Hillary from our Green Hub read The Sustainability Secret by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn (2015). This is what she had to say about it: "This investigative novel, expanding on the documentary Cowspiracy (Andersen & Kuhn, dir. 2014), looks into the animal agriculture industry and how it is, unknown to most, the largest contributor to climate change worldwide.  Current UN statistics show that agriculture, forestry and other land use cause 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions while the transportation sector...
Read more