It has been a big year for Grade 12 student Sequoia Kim.
The Artsy Activist co-founder has helped to organize a number of successful student protests, travelled to New York to participate in the United Nations Youth Summit and just last week was named one of the local YMCA Women of Distinction.
It’s difficult for Kim to pinpoint the origins of her drive to participate in activism, but she said it comes from a place of empathy and compassion for the people around her.
“For me, the biggest motivator behind everything that I do, is that I find it impossible to sit back when I know that there is so much suffering going on in the world — I just can’t watch it happen,” said Kim.
Growing up in Guelph has taught Kim a lot about community and she said meeting her friend and Artsy Activist co-founder Elise Kephart helped to take her activism to a new level.
“She just made me think differently about the world, she made me realize how much we could do if we just got off our asses and did it,” said Kim. “We met in social justice club and over the semester we became friends and in art class we had this idea to start Artsy Activists.”
Over the last year, Artsy Activists has helped to organize a number of local protests, including the largest one which dealt with the changes to the province’s sexual education curriculum.
“Something I have learned that is very important is that coming together as a team and doing things in solidarity and breaking down those barriers and having respect for human dignity and the environment,” said Kim.
The Ontario PC government ended up walking back on many of the proposed changes to the curriculum after outcry from across the province.
The group also helped to organize a protest in opposition to families being split up at the U.S.-Mexico border and a recent walk-out raising awareness for climate change issues.
“It was really heart-wrenching for me to know that families were being separated, and they still are. It’s not like the problem has been fixed,” said Kim.
Artsy Activists is the single most important thing Kim said she has been involved in and it is even more special because it was something she and Kephart built by themselves from the ground up.
“Seeing people be empowered — those are true victories for us and I think more important than any award,” said Kim.
The proposed cuts to post-secondary education spending by the Ontario government are especially worrying to Kim because it will directly affect her starting this fall, when she plans to attend McGill University for Political Science. She said many students like herself who are most affected by the changes couldn’t vote for or agains them because they weren’t 18 at the time of the election.
“It’s frustrating to see these changes happening over our heads and we don’t have a say in them and can’t do anything about them,” she said. “I do not agree with a lot of the things Doug Ford is doing with the province. It’s just not my political ideology and I think we are taking many backwards strides right now by doing some of the things he has done.”
“I’m 18 now and the federal election will be my first election. I will definitely be voting,” said Kim.
Earlier this year, Kephart and Kim were chosen to attend the United Nation Youth Summit in New York City, where over 1,000 youth from over 100 countries converged to speak about global issues.
Kim said she learned so much from the three-day conference and made friends from around the world.
“I have a friend in Sri Lanka, a friend in Indonesia, someone from Kenya and someone from Pakistan — there was literally so many people there,” she said.
If that wasn’t enough, Kim was voted to the board of directors for the Wellington Water Watchers in November of 2018 and last week was named one of the YMCA’s Women of Distinction.
“It’s cool to be recognized for the hours of work and effort I put in, but it’s really all for the others. I hope that everyone benefits,” said Kim of the honour.
Kim said she and Kephart will keep their friendship going as the two move to Montreal this summer — Kim to attend McGill, while Kephart will be going to Concordia University.
The state of Artsy Activists is up in the air because most of the people involved are in Grade 12 and will be graduating and it will be losing its founding members.
“I would like for it to continue. I think we have done a lot of good with it and it has been so fun,” said Kim.
As for career aspirations, Kim hopes to one day work on the other side of the protest lines and be in a position to make changes in policy.
“I want to be able to make those changes myself instead of demanding it from other people,” said Kim. “I am definitely interested in politics, it has been a common thread through everything. I think that change is made through politics, though it can be slow and frustratingly long process, but that is the way things get done.”
