For my activism, I drew attention to the organizationWEDO, as their missions and values became very important to me as the semester progressed. Through this course, I have made more of an effort to be environmentally conscious and implement aspects of ecofeminism into my daily life and thinking. With the personal being political, I felt that this activism best fit with the course of action I wanted to take, and here are my results.
I initially posted on all my social media platforms about a brief explanation of WEDO’s impact and mission, and linked their website as well as a fundraiser for any who wished to donate. I made my personal contribution to WEDO, as donating to causes I care about is an act that I do when I am financially able to. The post initially did not garner much attention, but I did find that over time some people reached out to interact with me about this post. Family members messaged me inquiring about the organization, which was great because I would not consider the family members who reached out to be environmentally conscious. I had friends who share similar views as I do show my posts some attention as well. Conveniently, Earth Day fell on a day while my post was published, so I reshared to attempt to initiate a conversation about what can be done on an individual level, even if it is just learning and spreading awareness. I even received messages from a few people who I had not previously spoken to very often to reach out about this organization. It was a great feeling to know that my post generated some sort of interest in learning about the impact that WEDO has for women engaging in environmental politics.
As stated, I linked a fundraising option to my post, which I was surprised to see that I had contributed $60 in donations, other than my personal contribution. It may not seem like a very large sum of money, but it made me very grateful that others saw the value and passion in this organization that I saw. Especially during this time of financial hardship for many people right now, it was humbling to see those contributions being made to a fundraiser that was created to benefit such an important cause. I feel that my activism is a gesture that many people can do, and I firmly believe that not all activism has to be large-scale to be impactful.