About Creating Climate Resilience
Our Story
Creating Climate Resilience emerged out of the founder's experience in the climate movement from 15 years old and struggling with activist burnout and mental health impacts of climate change including climate anxiety and ecological grief. This lead her to pursue a MA degree in Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria where she developed an approach for addressing climate anxiety and related eco-emotions through group artmaking and dialogue. See the Research page for more on her study. With the support of the Lawson Foundation Youth Action and Environment Pilot Fellowship she has turned her study into Creating Climate Resilience and is expanding her offerings.
Our Mission
Creating Climate Resilience aims to increase people's emotional resilience in order to help them sustain their engagement in climate action for the long haul. We do this through knowledge mobilization, community connections and arts-based climate emotions workshops. We focus primarily on youth (16 - 30) but offer workshops for people of a variety of ages, backgrounds and lived experiences.
Our Team
Sabrina Guzman Skotnitsky (she/her) a climate justice advocate, artist, researcher, youth consultant and the founder of Creating Climate Resilience. She has been part of the climate movement since she was 15, and has worked for environmental organizations from coast to coast on a range of projects related to climate policy, green jobs, just transition and youth leadership. As a bisexual woman of mixed Mexican and European descent, intersectionality is an important focus in Sabrina's work. She is especially passionate about connecting young people with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to contribute to the climate justice movement. Her Master's research in Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria explored how visual artmaking and dialoguing can help young people process climate anxiety and related eco-emotions. Sabrina also holds a Bachelor of Arts Honours in International Development Studies with a Minor in Political Science from Dalhousie University. She currently resides on the unceded and ancestral territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples (so-called Victoria BC).