Story
<p><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">I am raising money for a youth solidarity exchange to bring young indigenous people from Canada over to the UK to tell their story about the Tar Sands.</span></strong></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">For two weeks this summer I joined a group of 12 people from People and Planet on a two week trip to Alberta Canada to see how the Tar Sands development was affecting the local indigenous communities. We were made up of 8 students from around the UK, 2 People and Planet Staff and 2 documentary film makers.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">We stayed with the Beaver Lake Cree Nation camping on their reservation near Lac La Biche, Alberta.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">The area of Tar Sands that has the capability of being exploited in this region is the size of both England and Wales. This area is the world’s second largest deposit of oil after Saudi Arabia and the oil companies will stop at nothing to get hold of it. The Tar Sands are producing 1.3 million barrels of oil per day and are the US’s biggest supplier of oil. They are destroying great swathes of virgin boreal forest demolishing the natural habitat for many animals including the native caribou deer that face extinction which the Native Americans have hunted for centuries. Waste from the Tar Sands operation has entered the water system and is having a hugely negative impact on the indigenous people that live in the area, poisoning them and raising the concern for a higher than normal level of rare cancers. Not only does the Tar Sands hurt the people and the wildlife in the area but recently the NASA scientist James Hansen said that if all the oil locked in the Tar Sands were to be used it would make climate change inevitable and that they “are so dirty” “it only makes sense to leave them in the ground.” Tar Sands operations hurt us all.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Without exaggerating, this summer staying with the Beaver Lake Cree was truly life changing. They welcomed us with opened arms; telling us stories about their changing lives faced with the giant of the Tar Sands and how their traditional ways of life are seriously under threat. We went to a Pow Wow, took part in a traditional sweat lodge and roamed their beautiful land littered with the industrial debris of oil extraction.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">After the Beaver Lake Cree were such amazing hosts to us students it’s time for us to return the favour. I am raising money for a solidarity exchange to bring youth from the Beaver Lake Cree over to the UK in November. They will be here in London, Oxford and Birmingham (dates TBC).</span></p>
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<p><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Please help me raise the money in order to makes this solidarity exchange happen and be a success.</span></strong></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">Here are <strong>video blogs </strong>we made of the trip: <a href="http://vimeo.com/25766720">http://vimeo.com/25766720</a></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">And if you want to get <strong>involved with the campaign </strong>check out our Facebook page: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/3sevxz5">http://tinyurl.com/3sevxz5</a></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;">People and Planet page: <a href="http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/youth-exchange"><span style="color: #800080;">http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/youth-exchange</span></a></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt;"><strong>Sign the petition!</strong> <a href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/crude_politics/"><span style="color: #800080;">http://www.avaaz.org/en/crude_politics/</span></a></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><strong> </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><strong>Email your MP!</strong>: <a href="http://www.co-operative.coop/toxicfuels"><span style="color: #800080;">http://www.co-operative.coop/toxicfuels</span></a></span></p>