Climate Cafe

What emotions come up when you think about the climate crisis? Perhaps you feel sadness, guilt, apathy, numbness, frustration, anger, overwhelm, a combination of these, or entirely different emotions altogether. Whatever your emotional response, you are welcome to a climate café to talk about it.

A climate café is a brave, supportive, and confidential space for participants to share our responses to the climate crisis. Climate cafés focus on feelings; no feeling is too difficult or taboo to discuss. Participants are invited to share as much or as little as they are comfortable with.

What a climate café is:

• A brave and supportive space for participants to vocalize their experiences and emotions surrounding the climate crisis
• An opportunity for participants to feel heard and validated, regardless of their emotional response
• A confidential space

What a climate café is not:

• A place to plan upcoming actions
• A place to debate climate science or challenge the validity of lived experience
• A group discussion about ongoing climate issues

Who Can Attend?

Our events are only available for individuals 16 years of age and older residing in Canada. We are sorry to those who who are not from our region who are not be able to participate.

Format/Agenda

This group meets for one and a half (1.5) hours. During this time we will take turns speaking and holding space for others to share. You are invited to respond to a provided prompt, build on what another participant has said, or introduce a new topic altogether. Once everyone who wishes to share has, we begin again. Time depending, we complete 2-3 separate rounds of sharing before closing the event.

Participant Guidelines - please read before attending

To help participants feel respected, included, valued and safe, climate café participants agree to the following guidelines, below.

1. Confidentiality

Anything shared, verbally or in writing, of a personal nature by a participant should be treated as confidential. That is, it is not to be shared by other participants outside of group. That said, if something is shared that indicates a participant may be in danger of harming themselves or someone else, the facilitator will share this information with their supervisor at Healthy Minds for consideration of next steps to be taken.

2. Leave our baggage at the door

We all have our personal biases, preferences and even prejudices but we are here to support one another so try to be aware of your own, and of your reactions to personalities, and things people share, and how they share them in group. Oppressive and/or harmful language, including but not limited to sexist/misogynist, racist, queerphobic, and ableist language will not be tolerated.

3. Share the Air

There is no strict time limit for how long anyone may speak, we just ask that everyone is mindful of the number of participants and the space they are taking up. Participants are reminded not to interrput other speakers to ask questions or build one what they have said. We speak in a one-by-one format.

4. Sharing is optional

There is no requirement to share your feelings. You may share or pass.

If you have any concerns or questions about these agreements, please contact Elizabeth at elizabeth@healthyminds.ca.