WWU student to facilitate 'eco-anxiety café' workshops open to the Western community
Eco-anxiety, sometimes referred to as climate anxiety, is the extreme fear or worry about climate change and how it will affect the future.
Last summer, Bella Rossi, a senior Environmental Studies major and the Environmental Sciences Department engagement events coordinator, designed a series of community eco-anxiety cafés in her hometown of Spokane.
“Doing these cafés opened my eyes to something I didn’t know I was able or capable of doing,” she said. “Creating safe spaces for people to share their emotions and build connections with one another.”
Now, she’s bringing this experience to Western.
The eco-anxiety café workshop series aims to provide a supportive and engaging safe space for participants to help each other with the isolation, helplessness, and overwhelm that can arise from eco-anxiety and to build a deeper connection to the land. The workshops use Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects (WTR) framework to design a workshop that transforms eco-anxiety into empowerment and fosters deeper connections to self, community, and the Earth.
The spring quarter Eco-anxiety Café workshop series is hosted by the College of the Environment’s Environmental Sciences (ESCI) department and is free and open to the entire Western community.
How to get involved:
If you’re ready to share your feelings and thoughts, find or share resources, and connect with others who share your concerns, learn more about the workshops and register to attend. And, if you are interested in working with students’ emotions through a holistic framework and have a history of facilitating events, reach out to Bella Rossi at rossii@wwu.edu.
Workshop details:
- Monday, April 14, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in Academic West (AW) 304
- Monday, April 28, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in AW 304
- Wednesday, May 14, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in AW 403
The three sessions will build on each other, but attendees can register for one or all three. Participants may meet between sessions for hikes, cold plunging, meditation, yoga, and other related activities.
This event is intended for all participants, including those with apparent or non-apparent disabilities. For disability accommodation(s) or any questions about the event, please contact Bella Rossi at rossii@wwu.edu. Advanced notice is appreciated and sometimes necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.
Jennifer Nerad covers Western's College of the Environment for the Office of University Communications. Have a great story idea? Reach out to her at neradj@wwu.edu.