Sonya Peres (she/her)

How are you using education to build more sustainable and equitable communities? Tell us about your EE work and impact.

I deliver programs and campaigns, partnering educators, institutions, and trade unions with their students to embed climate justice into all student learning, including Responsible Futures, which has reached nearly 1,100,000 students globally in the past decade. 

I facilitate collaboration on decolonizing, decarbonizing, and democratizing education, to encourage the systems change so urgently needed for a just world. 

Decolonizing and decarbonizing education dismantles the impact of colonialism in our education systems. It interrogates how colonialism has shaped our relationships with one another, to the environment, and to ourselves. Decolonizing and decarbonizing looks not just at what is taught, but how it is taught and the skills we’re supported to develop, to help us respond to the climate crisis meaningfully.

Democratizing education recognizes students as active agents in their learning—as having valuable lived and cultural experience to contribute to academic and educational endeavors—and sees the relationship between students and educators as symbiotic and collaborative. 

I work with others to transform education so that we’re not just learning for jobs, but we’re learning for widespread liberation and wellbeing. That we’re valuing creativity, empathy, and curiosity as much as other skills and that we’re learning for our communities and for climate justice.

Tell us about your journey to where you are today. What inspired you? What has your path been like?

I became interested in social justice through studying social, cultural, and political history at university, in particular, the impacts of colonialism. I was moved to learn about the many small, and large instances of resistance against colonial systems and structures, and that it is always possible to dismantle a harmful status quo. 

During university, I worked summers at a Canadian NGO called Meal Exchange, where I supported students to tackle food insecurity on university and college campuses, and to lobby their institutions to serve sustainable and ethical food. During my postgraduate studies, I worked with a South Asian women’s center in Edinburgh learning how to make sustainability in Scotland more accessible. 

Over time, these experiences, as well as books, films, and patient and generous friends, supported me to more deeply explore and value the inextricable link between social justice and the climate crisis and the connection between all struggles. 

A big “a ha” moment for me was realizing the role of education in radically transforming our world, and the power of mobilizing and organizing students and workers in our education systems to do this. I’m grateful to be able to work closely with students, and others, to harness this power.

How can people learn more about or support your work?

People can learn more about my work through the Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK) website as well as the Responsible Futures program website. I am also seconded to the University College Union one day a week to support their members to progress a Green New Deal in their workplaces. 

A Little More About Me

What (or who) keeps you hopeful for the future?

All the committed and brave activists and organizers across the world who work tirelessly for our collective liberation, putting people and the natural environment over profit, and putting collective comfort and wellbeing over individual gain. 

What advice would you give to the next generation of leaders?

Stay curious—about everything! 

What’s your favorite food to celebrate with?

Congee or a South Indian thali.

What’s a passion project of yours outside of your work?

Writing a family recipe book with my grandmother.