How Change Happens

Caring is revolutionary

Relational power as a catalyst

Communities today face rising costs, extreme weather, and political disillusionment due to colonial capitalism and systemic oppression.

These structures fuel burnout, isolation, and individualism, erasing ancestral knowledge, community practices, and intergenerational solidarity.

Burnout

Unaffordable lives force constant hustle, especially for those navigating structural injustice.

Learn about who is most impacted by burnout.

Since the 1990s, youth, racialized, and gender-diverse people have experienced notable burnout:

→ Teen anxiety has risen 19% globally since 1990.
→ Nearly 1 in 5 now experience anxiety or depression before age 20.
→ In Canada and the U.S., belief in work’s meaning has dropped 20–30 points.

Loneliness

Systems that ignore care — mental, physical, ecological — create collapse, not connection.

See the changes in time use over the decades.

Since the 1990s, our shared time is slipping, with 15–29 year olds now spending:

→ 54% less time with friends (from 2.04 to 0.94 hours/day)
→ 45% more time alone (from 4.13 to 6.01 hours/day)

Hopelessness

Overlapping crises breed fear and fatigue. When hope feels elusive, it stalls resistance.

View trends in youth attitudes about the future.

A 2021 global youth survey found:

→ 75% say the future feels frightening
→ 56% believe humanity is doomed
→ 83% believe people have failed to take care of the planet.

But when communities embed care within their shared social and ecological infrastructure, they can create new systems that prioritize collective well-being over growth.

Equipped with shared needs, strong ties, and ancestral wisdom, communities that care make change happen in six different ways.

Relational Foundations
What grounds the work?

Transformation starts with community strengths: ancestral knowledge, cultural memory, language, ecosystems, and land—living relationships, not mere resources.

Invitation or Emergence
What initiates the shift?

Change happens when communities are ready, driven by dreams, ceremonies, needs, or land signals. It relies on consent and readiness, not urgency or external pressure.

Holding Space
What supports the transformation?

This is a pause—rest, grief, or healing—that fosters connection, not a quick fix. Elders, land, ancestors, and community hold space for what’s emerging, sometimes requiring stepping back from dominant systems.

Becoming Otherwise
What emerges?

New ways of being emerge—not as better or advanced, but as different: reclaiming cultural practices, redefining roles, or embracing silence. These non-linear, diverse shifts are rooted in sovereignty.

Reintegration & Continuance
What follows?

The shift is a return to daily life rooted in shared responsibility—through teaching, creating, parenting, organizing, or redefining our relationship with community and land.

Regenerative Impact
What lasts?

Long-term, it’s about restoration, balance, and healing—caring for land, honoring community memory, and strengthening interdependence. The impact is generational, relational, and sacred.

Through various sites of change—interpersonal relationships, local contexts, self-reflection, worldviews, ontology, and conditions of life-affirming systems—we can anticipate outcomes aligned with the demands for a livable, lovable, liberated future.