The following are Otesha-created blueprints to hosting super funkifed events in your community - great for team-building, increasing the visibility of simple living in your community, and having tons of fun!

Living Simply Day
Hopeful Youth unite for Simplicity's Sake!

To mark the last day of their 2003 Tour, the Otesha Project named October 10th, 2003 Living Simply Day, a day to celebrate positive lifestyle choices that lead to a more sustainable future for the planet and for people around the world.

We invite you to join us in your own community to celebrate - on October 10th every year, or any day you'd like!! The plan is to get as many people out in towns and cities across the nation taking more culture jammin', consumption slammin' actions! So gather up your friends, neighbours and fellow hopeful youth for a sustainability joy ride.

So, grab a friend, grab 10 friends, why not organize a group of 50 motivated people to walk, hop on their bicycles or public transit to gallivant about your community. Put a creative sign on your back (i.e. My Fuel is High Octane Love), make a few noisemakers and ride over to shake things up in your town. Here are a few ideas of locations you could visit on your fantastic frolic:

Coffee Shop: Ask the local coffee shop if they sell "Fair Trade, Organic, Shade Grown Coffee." If yes, why not treat yourself to a warm mug and thank them and their customers for making a choice with a positive impact. If no, tell them to get on the "Fair Trade Love Wagon" and "STOP THE EXPLOITATION". Ask to fill out a comment card, and / or fill them in on fair trade practices around the world. If you need more information on it, check out Oxfam and www.transfair.ca on the web. Also check out how many people are getting their coffee in waste-free containers and congratulate those that are not contributing to our landfills.

Library, schools, and/or office buildings: In 1999, 40 million trees were cut down in the U.S. just to print books! Share ideas on how to save paper by making posters, (printed on the other side of used paper, of course!) with some facts and paper saving ideas (i.e. making notebooks out of used paper, photocopying on the other side of used paper, buying recycled paper, etc.) Place the posters over photocopiers or in other areas of tree carnage. You can also place thank you posters in libraries, thanking people for saving trees by sharing books, magazines, and newspapers. Don't forget to check for a recycling bin wherever you go and make sure there is one!

Public toilets: Toilet dam a movie theatre, shopping mall, university campus, community center, or gas station! 40% of household water consumed is in our toilets, help reduce this by putting weighted plastic bottles (i.e. peanut butter jars with a rock or hockey puck inside), toilet dams, or water displacement bags in the tanks of toilets. For more info check out www.sahra.arizona.edu/programs or urbantaex.tamu.edu/Harris/Disasters/Drought/ToiletRemedies.htm. This will help displace some of the 24 L of water that is flushed down the average toilet!

Fast food place: Stand outside of fast food locations and hand out washed, used containers (i.e. yoghurt containers) and ask people to get their lunch or at least their french fries in the container. Congratulate them for using less packaging and "doing their bite" for the planet! If you are on your bike you could even take a ride through the drive-through, and/or ask if the employees are unionized, or where their beef comes from.

Transportation: Bike or walk around your town, leaving chalk messages on bike paths or bike lanes congratulating locals for biking, and in parking lots reminding people of the option of carpools and buses. Take old cardboard boxes and create a colourful funky sign to wear on your back with a slogan promoting sustainable transportation, and/or make yourself a noisemaker (we like using coins in old film canisters) to attract attention as you and your team cycle, walk, or take the bus on your glee-spree around town.

Other culture jammin', consumption slammin' projects: If you are really inspired, why not go to your local grocery store and sell reusable cotton bags, while at the same time informing people about buying local and organic food and the concerns pertaining to genetically modified food. Or why not hop on your local transit system with your friends and perform spontaneous public theatre, thanking transit riders for making a sustainable choice while encouraging them to take further action! Do a town clean up! Organize a critical mass! Invite friends over for a vegan potluck! Demonstrate against sweatshop labour in front of the culpable store! The possibilities are endless - be creative, think outside the box, and change the world : )Whatever you do, make sure you have fun! Living sustainably is joyful, fulfilling, and empowering, and that's the message we want to get out! If you are interested in participating email us info@otesha.ca and we will put you in contact with a coordinator in your community, or you can become a coordinator if there isn't one already. Don't forget to take photos of your community joyride and send us the details so we can showcase some collective action on our website! Everything will be posted on the website, so stay tuned and be a part of this movement of sustainable solidarity!!

Happy Living Simply Day!

Living Simply Day Kidified!!
Hello there sustainable superheroes!

OUR MISSION: To take ACTION and join other groups of heroic kids across the world!

Here is a list of activities that other groups of kids are taking across Canada. By choosing one of them, or all of them, you'll be joining the forces of the culture-jamming, consumption-slamming superheroes!

Need more help??? Despair not! Otesha is here! E-mail us at info@otesha.ca and we will get back to ya in a flash to deal with any problem you might encounter.

Living Simply Day SECTOR A: The Playground

OPERATION TRASH BASH - Gather together a group of hopeful youth and time how long it takes to pick up all the litter in your school playground.

OPERATION GIVING TREE - Get your teacher or parents or guardians to help you buy some baby trees that are native to your area. Plant the native tree species in your school playground (remember to ask the school principal first!).

OPERATION BIO-BIN - Get a teacher to help you and some friends organize a school compost system. You can get a big compost bin for the schoolyard and then put small bins wherever kids eat lunch. In the bins you can put the leftover bits from fruit and veggies and bread (no meat, bones or eggs (unless you have a city compost program which accepts these, like in PEI). Every day your group can empty the small bins into the big composter out back and SOON you'll have soil for your school garden or flower garden.

Living Simply Day SECTOR B: Public Communications

OPERATION SUSTAINABLE HIP-HOP - Get a couple of your friends, fire up your creative juices and then kick it down to the office to take over the 9AM airways with some change-the-world jams. You could come up with a quick rhyme about any issue that concerns you and that you want to share with the rest of the school. Suggestions? Give us an e-mail, or take a little inspiration from Simon and Steve:

Going to the library shares all the books,
So we don't have to cut down the woods
With all the trees we got more clean air
Chillin' at the library, for the earth we love to care!

OPERATION RESPECT DA FARMER - Instead of fundraising with normal unfairly traded chocolate, switch to fair-trade chocolate, and make it a point to raise awareness about the importance of fair-trade goods. To learn about fair trade go to www.transfair.ca. You could use the money raised to help fund other living simply projects! Contact La Siembra : www.lasiembra.ca or any other distributor of fair-trade chocolate for advice on fun fundraising ideas.

OPERATION ECO-TAG - Suggest to your teacher that for a fun break you play Sustainability-Tag. It's just like TV-Tag, except when you get tagged you have to name an action that is good for the environment. If you can't think of an action, you're IT! Play on!

Living Simply Day SECTOR C: Getting to School

OPERATION PRE/POST SCHOOL REVOLUTION - Turn off the TV! Try talking with your friends and family or reading an interesting book before and after school. Don't forget to enjoy a delicious glass of soy milk!

OPERATION BIKING RULES - On the way to school and back home afterwards, get all your friends together on bikes and set off in a big group. You can gather lots of attention with bells, flags, costumes, face-painting, cheers and songs; plus, biking with your friends is super fun! It can be a rollin' pedal-powered party!!!

Living Simply Day SECTOR D: The Classroom

OPERATION FLIPSIDE - Encourage others to use the opposite side of paper. Dig into the paper-recycling bin to find tons of paper that you can definitely reuse.

OPERATION FLASHFORCE - Check out the light bulbs in your classroom - are they compact fluorescent? If not, organize a group of kids to work with your teachers for change!

OPERATION RECYCLE-ART - Next time you do an art project, instead of using new materials, use recycled or reused materials to create a beautiful, magnificent piece of RECYCLART!

OPERATION CLEAN SWEEP - Okay, so your teacher asks everyone to clean out their desks. Instead of chucking that filthy desk mess into a recycling bin, why not have a bit of crazy fun and create a PAPER MACHE MONSTER!!!!

OPERATION SHARE-A-THON - Sharing with friends rules. Sharing with people you don't know makes friends out of everyone. So share the bounty of your good-fortune - take those old school supplies, and give them to kids around the world or in your own community who really NEED them. Contact a group like Kids Can Free the Children to organize a donation.

OPERATION TRADE RAID - Do your teachers know everything? No, of course not - and maybe they don't even know that Fair Trade coffee and chocolate are the coolest things ever! So ask them what they drink in their staff-room. If it's not fair trade, ask them why not. If they simply haven't heard of fair trade, let them in on something that you knew before they even did!

OPERATION LUNCH MUNCH - Did you know that the average grocery store has more plastic than it does food? Let's put an end to this rubbish! Have a litter-less lunch day in your school. Talk to your teacher about organizing a school-wide day where NO garbage is created. Or try a meatless lunch day, encouraging kids and their parents to RE-think what they stick in their sandwich. MMMM, peanut butter and jam, our favourite!

OPERATION LOGO POGO - Into a little investigation? Bounce around your school and check out how many corporate logos you can find. Then post the results in a space where everyone can see them, or share them with interested classes.

OPERATION KID FREEDOM - All over the world, kids your age work in unsafe factories producing clothing for pennies an hour. Is your school supporting this injustice? Find out what kind of conditions your school clothing, uniforms, soccer balls and other sports equipment were made in by looking up the manufacturing companies on a website like Kids can free the children and www.responsibleshopper.org. If you don't agree with their practices, suggest alternatives for your school - check out ethical clothing at otesha.ca for more ideas.

OPERATION TUPPERWARE REVOLUTION - If your school has a cafeteria, how does it serve food? Is it on paper plates or other disposables? If so, the time is ripe for a REVOLUTION!! Bring your trusty tupperware to school so that you don't create more garbage, and get your school to adopt a rule of encouraging students to use tupperware. It's cheaper for the school, way better for our planet, and totally cool!

Good luck! Everyone at Otesha is looking forward to hearing what YOU will do!!

Sustainability Joy Ride!

Goals:

• Trying out and learning about different forms of sustainable transportation in your city
• Promoting sustainable transportation in your city
• Learning about and connecting with other sustainable transportation organizations
• Teambuilding
• Conferences: introducing participants to the host city, and teaching them an event which they could run in their own communities

Number of youth: very flexible - this outline designed for 90

Who should run it: You! Whether it's with your friends, your family, your school, your youth group, your conference - YOU are perfect for the job.

Length of time: 2 hours

Activity: Participants will receive the following instructions (modified according to what is possible in your city):

Dear fellow hopeful youth:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is for your team to complete an [insert City Name] sustainability Joy Ride. You must complete as many Sustainability Promoting Activities as possible (S.P.A.'s), record these activities on your digital camera, and of course have FUN! The best photos will be downloaded onto the [insert name] website and the ultimate urban sustainable transportation photo will be featured in the [insert newspaper name] . Please make sure that you and your team have the following essential materials with you before leaving:

• A team name
• Sidewalk chalk (held by your team leader)
• Transit map and city map (also held by your fantabulous team leader)
• Human-powered vehicle with two wheels, bike helmet and a bike lock (if you are on a biking team, otherwise just good walking shoes!)
• Insert public transit name day pass
• Digital camera (held by your team leader)
• S.P.A. Sign kit
• And most importantly the appropriate S.P.A. uniform! (i.e. funky signs with sustainable transportation slogans on them to wear, or have your face painted to decorate you during your sustainability joy ride!)

S.P.A's:

• Leave a chalk message on a [city name] bike path or bike lane congratulating people for biking, and/or in parking lots reminding people of the option of carpools and buses.

• Hop on the public transit name with your team and perform some gratitude bus carolling to the song of your choice. An example to the tune of the 'wheels on the bus..' is: "The wheels on the bus go round and round, and the emissions go down, the emissions go down, our air is cleaner because of you, so thanks from us and mother earth too!" You can make up extra verses or a new song all together, just be creative! (please note, if you're on bikes, only the [insert bus numbers] have bike racks)

• Gather in front of the cool city landmark with your team for a funky photo

• Find locked up bicycles and attach thank you tags to their handle bars

• Put up thank you posters in two bus shelters

• Get a picture of your team participating in the ultimate form of sustainable transportation (walking, skipping, dancing, etc.) next to another cool landmark

• Find and thank 5 pedestrians (possibly take a picture with them, while holding up a thank you poster, if they are really friendly) and tell them about what your group does

• Get a photo at a local bike co-op (marked on your map) and find out how many bikes they refurbish every year and what they do

• Visit and take a photo in front of the car sharing co-op and find out how many people have joined the co-op and how it works

• Take two photos that represent obstacles you see to sustainable urban transportation

• Take a photo with a [public transit name] bus driver (and thank them for putting up with the sustainability joy riders all day!)

• Take a photo of everyone's bikes parked in a parking lot space!

• Take a photo of a recumbent or tandem bicycle

• Get a photo of another team's glee-spree around town

Required Equipment:

• 5 pieces of chalk per team (~75 pieces) : $30.00 total
• 1 (public transit name) day pass for each participant : $6.00 per participant
• Supplies to make signs, posters and tags (sign paint, face paint, string, tape, reused paper and cardboard) : $15.00 total - the more used material you use the better!
• 1 transit map and city map per team :free
• Free Bikes, bike helmets, and bike locks for half the teams : Borrowed
• 1 Digital camera per team : Borrowed hopefully!

Partners to approach that were mentioned in the activity:

• Local newspaper
• Bike Co-op
• Car Co-op
• Public Transit Company

Notes and Tips:

• Youth would be put into 11 teams of 8 people each with a team leader (please see further explanation below). If this is a conference, the groups can be made regionally to help facilitate bringing this activity back to their community, and team building.
• If you can't get bikes for everyone, don't worry - you can split groups into biker and walkers
• Digital cameras will hopefully come from organizers and the participants themselves - again, no worries if you can't find them
• Media contacts will be made after the press release
• The signs, thank you tags, and checklists should be made by participants before the event is supposed to start.

Team Leaders:

• These volunteers: act as the official photographers ensuring that the cameras stay safe, as well as capturing each member of the team in at least one photo; have a good understanding of either the biking routes or the transit routes; need to get the participants back in time, and to make sure everyone's having fun!

Team leaders need: a city map with the appropriate places marked on it, a transit map (if taking the bus), a list of their team members (and any special considerations associated with them), an S.P.A. list, a list of what needs to be made during the registration period, and a contact number to call during the joy-ride if there are any problems.