We Are Many: A Festival
What is WAM?
WAM is the power of many, making big changes by taking small steps together. It is a celebration of the arts, public education, community action, and a Pact -- all to unite people in making simple adjustments that, taken together, can have a large positive impact on the environment.
From August 22nd to 24th, Saskatoon will be the site of the transformative pilot project We Are Many: A Festival, which presents a model of sustainability that can be exported to other mid-sized communities throughout North America. WAM's success in Saskatoon will show that we are a true leader in Saskatchewan, Canada, and the world.
We Are Many (WAM) uses the energy and community spirit of the arts -- music, theatre, dance, literature, and visual art -- to take a dramatic step towards becoming an environmentally friendly community. The festival will feature arts exhibits and performances as well as hands-on workshops and symposia on the whats, hows, and whys of sustainability.
The festival will attract a substantial proportion of the citizens of Saskatoon, and people from across Canada and the US will arrive by train, by bus, and in bicycle troupes. Each of them will have the opportunity to make their commitment public by signing the "WAM Pact," a list of 10 simple, feasible, and practical actions they can choose to implement in their own lives and homes.
When each of these seemingly small efforts is multiplied, it will have a much greater impact. Essentially: In a short period of time, Saskatoon can visibly become a much greener city. WAM has been working with the City of Saskatoon in order to compile a report that will document the WAM impact on landfill use, water consumption per household, bus ridership, traffic patterns, and more.
We Are Many Festival, Inc. is incorporated as a not-for-profit organisation in the province of Saskatchewan. Through its partnership with the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation, it maintains charitable status for income tax purposes.
WAM is primarily youth-run -- members of our core organising team are almost all under 30! We also benefit greatly from the experience of the members of our advisory board and other community leaders.
A Community Movement
During the past year we have reached out to thousands of people and organisations all over North America, and they in turn have talked to thousands more. We have been endorsed by dozens of politicians at all levels of government. Musicians, professors, grandmothers, dancers, gardeners, students, lawyers, painters, children, teachers, and others from all walks of life have signed on as organisers, advisers, volunteers, and supporters.
We have the support and cooperation of Saskatoon’s popular bi-weekly magazine, Plant S, as well Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation, former Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, Environmental Defense Canada, Steven Page of The Barenaked Ladies, the Saskatoon Peace Coalition, Booker Prize-winning author Yann Martel, the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, former United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, the Saskatchewan Environmental Society, and Dr. Jane Goodall, among many others!
The WAM Pact
The centerpiece of the festival, the Pact, will propose 10 attainable personal commitments such as “I agree to replace all of the light bulbs in my house with compact fluorescent bulbs.” Notably, no items are mandatory. The signatories are encouraged to choose to do the most they can in accordance with their personal constraints, be they financial, physical, or other constraints.
The Pact is designed to combat the three main reasons we feel people fail to take action. These include:
1) Individuals lack reliable, locally relevant information, and thus lack the confidence to change their habits. Each of the Pact's action items are designed to produce the greatest benefits for our local environment. The list of actions has been carefully selected by our research team, and a preliminary version was first posted on our website on April 22nd, 2008, on Earth Day. Until the Festival itself, everyone is invited to discuss, debate, and amend the Pact online, making this a truly collaborative effort.
2) Individuals lack a supportive, cooperative, and coordinated peer network, making it difficult to implement lifestyle changes without the support of those around us, our family members, and our friends. As a lone individual, composting and carpooling are all but impossible. We propose to address that fact with the last item of the Pact, which asks each signatory to sign up more individuals to the Pact. We are most likely to engage those closest to us, creating the opportunity to involve entire households, social groups, and communities.
3) Individuals feel that the actions of one person can’t possibly make a difference. . . . but a significant portion of the population all acting at once can! That’s why the Pact is part of a large-scale, community-wide festival, and why it is designed to attract as many people as possible. By joining in a collective effort, each signatory is guaranteed to see real results for any effort invested. We will be publishing a report shortly after the Festival that will document the WAM impact on rates of landfill use, water consumption per household, bus ridership, changes in traffic patterns, and much more.
Why WAM? Why now?
As many as 91% of Canadians consider environmental sustainability to be a critical issue facing Canada and the world, and a similar number express willingness to make lifestyle changes (CAA Public Opinion Survey, 2007).
But a number of obstacles face this "green majority". WAM is unique as a movement because it aims to combat the three main obstacles to environmentally friendly living: lack of information, lack of cooperation and coordination in our own families and social circles, and the illusion that our individual actions are insignificant. The Festival's many workshops and symposia will give participants the knowledge and tools they need to acquire greener habits, and by attracting a significant portion of Saskatoon’s population, will create visible change on a larger scale.
The We Are Many Impact can manifest itself in the elimination of traffic jams, a dramatic increase in bus ridership, more bicycles and pedestrians, less litter, fewer garbage cans and an updated recycling program. A community-based movement has already been growing around the festival, and with time its strength and impact can only increase.