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New West students' climate advocacy earns national award

Glenbrook Middle School’s social justice club has won a national award for 15-minute city efforts.
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Students from École Glenbrook Middle School's Monkey Rebels club — seen here with Mayor Patrick Johnstone — presented a 15-minute city motion at city hall on June 12 and won council's support. Photo contributed

École Glenbrook Middle School’s social justice club has won a national award for their climate advocacy efforts.

The Monkey Rebels club from Glenbrook just captured second place in the national Empowering Youth for Climate Action awards from Learning for a Sustainable Future.

The award comes with a $2,000 prize for the club to use towards its future projects.

The students earned the honours for 15 Minute Cities — Think Globally, Act Locally, which saw them draft a proposal for New Westminster to work towards becoming a 15-minute city.

They presented a motion to city council on June 12 and won the city’s support.

Their motion calls for the city to take actions such as adding and widening sidewalks, adding more benches and seating areas, improving bike lanes, providing more bike racks, upgrading playgrounds, adding more public washrooms, adding more greenspaces throughout the city and much more.

They also created a toolkit for other students to use in having similar motions passed in their own cities.

You can find out more about the students and their mission in a previous Record interview with the Monkey Rebels.

You can also check out their winning project at the Our Canada Project website.

Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
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