SAUGEEN SHORES WOMAN A CLIMATE REALITY PROJECT MENTOR

With this post I continue to champion local citizens who generally fly under the radar in serving the community and country in which they live.

This week, Victoria Serda of Saugeen Shores has joined former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore's non-profit Climate Reality Project as a mentor at its three-day training event in Pittsburgh, October 17-19. This afternoon, Serda was scheduled to join the “Climate Reality Leaders: Who We Are” panel with Gore and three other mentors to share her experience in front of the 1,300-plus new trainees from around the world.

VICTORIA SERDA

Since being a teenager growing up in Owen Sound, Ontario, she has encouraged rural action on climate change as a public speaker and grassroots organizer, later as an organic farmer, then as an elected Municipal Councilor in Saugeen Shores.  Serda holds a Bachelor Degree in Independent Studies from the University of Waterloo and she has a long-standing interest and passion for community service and environmental protection.

She also has the honour of being one of the first 20 Canadian Climate Leaders trained by Al Gore and, in 2007, along with her then 11-year-old daughter Corrina, they presented over 90 times to more than 25,000 people across Ontario. After having run millions in programs with indigenous and settler governments, non-profits and companies, she now has her own consulting corporation, StepFour, that specializes in implementing community dreams.

Serda’s mentor group will include 25 people from around the world, including leaders from Sweden, Israel, Italy, Norway, Finland, Morocco, Albania, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Hungary and the United States.

Their life experiences include being a student, professor, business owner, sustainability consultant, a food industry processor, farm researcher, lawyer, doctor and a father and daughter team.

As a mentor in the panel discussion, she will be asked questions by Gore about her own experience, to help the new trainees understand how to tell their stories, connect, and empower their audiences.

“This personal training from Al Gore and many experts in science, communication and community organizing will change over 1300 people’s lives, just as it did for me back in 2007,” Serda said. "They will join over 11,000 people already empowered to be effective local Climate Leaders around the world.”

What is The Climate Reality Project Canada?

The Climate Reality Project Canada (Climate Reality Canada) is a charity organization that serves as the Canadian component of a global movement.  Climate Reality Canada motivates Canadians to become active participants in solving the climate crisis by:

-- Training a diverse range of citizens from numerous geographic regions and walks of life, who will then communicate to the public about the urgency and impact of climate change.

-- Engaging the public through presentations, news media and individual conversations as well as non-partisan grassroots advocacy so that Canadians will make informed choices about public policy matters related to climate change.

-- Promoting personal, local, domestic and international initiatives to solve the climate crisis.

Originally named The Climate Project Canada, the organization was created in May 2007 with the objective of educating Canadians about the science and impact of climate change as well as solutions to address it. Based on the model of The Climate Project founded by Nobel Laureate Al Gore, the primary means of disseminating this information is through trained Climate Leaders like Serda from all demographics, regions, sectors and backgrounds. Leaders originally presented adapted versions of a slide show as featured in the widely viewed documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which made the compelling case that global warming is real, man-made, and its effects will be cataclysmic if we don’t act now.