Last week, TEA held a unique forum bringing together grassroots leaders to talk about engaging people on climate change. The participants represented communities across Toronto, and worked on a range of issues including poverty reduction, emergency preparedness, housing, settlement services and more.

They have all been involved in grassroots engagement work in the City and talked about potential strategies to help bring new and diverse voices into conversations about climate change.

Over the past year, TEA has been conducting research and testing engagement strategies on how to best engage new voices on climate change work.

Through this forum, we identified some of the key barriers and potential strategies to help engage more people in Toronto.

Through this fun and engaging event, we learned a great deal about how to better connect climate change challenges and opportunities to the other issues Toronto residents care about.

As the City continues to develop a climate action plan, these ideas and strategies are crucial for getting more people involved in this process. All of the insights that were shared will help inform recommendations to the City of Toronto on how to engage residents through TransformTO over the coming years.