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Activist aims to get students involved in social issues

Karen Seidman
The Gazette
Monday, November 24, 2008

Gabriel Bran Lopez wants to change the world - one student at a time.
As someone with a strong sense of civic duty, Lopez - at the ripe old age of 25 - has done everything from promoting change through theatre in the Cree nations, spent a summer working in Senegal where he helped a family escape the cycle of poverty, worked with youth in Northern Uganda and is now trying to get a pilot project going that would improve civic education in Quebec schools.
It’s no wonder that last year he won the Forces Avenir award in Quebec for his involvement in public issues.
And if that wasn’t impressive enough, Lopez has also been involved with a campaign to make Quebec universities greener with an organization called Generations Pact. The organization spearheaded a successful drive to get students at Concordia University to pay a surcharge, amounting to one per cent of fees, that is earmarked for a special sustainability fund.
Now, with Christmas approaching, Lopez is using a string of speaking engagements at schools to help raise non-perishable food donations for Share the Warmth, the Point St. Charles food bank. Normally, he would be paid for such talks, but now he is just asking for donations to help out the charitable organization.
He was at Vanier College last week and made an impact on Sherry Hergott’s Humanities class with his talk about using the Internet to promote social change and the importance of voting.
“The students seemed really inspired by his work in developing countries and they got the message about voting,” said Hergott. “He’s such a great speaker.”
The project Lopez is focused on right now is called Youth Fusion, which aims to get more civic education in high schools by creating partnerships between high schools and universities.
As it stands now, according to Lopez, there is only one life and community animator for every 10 to 22 high schools in Quebec. Lopez believes there should be many more animators because youth involvement in public issues is so important.
“There should be at least one community involvement co-ordinator in every high school,” he said. “Why don’t we use the expertise of university students and bring it to high schools?”
He said the government would save a lot of money because university students wouldn’t have to be paid full teaching fees and he believes the idea of community involvement would resonate even more with high school students if it was university students leading the charge.
“There is a lot of great work being done by undergraduates that we shouldn’t undervalue,” said Lopez.
He is planning a pilot project with such a partnership for this winter or next fall.
Lopez believes he is so civic-minded because of role models he had in elementary and high school.
“Since the age of 11, I’ve been involved in leadership, student council and theatre,” he said. “It’s just so important to get kids involved.”
He also promotes using the Internet to create social change and has a great story from his summer in Senegal last year, where he met four-year-old Numa who charmed him with her radiant smile.
Numa’s family lived in poverty and had no money for education. So Lopez logged on to Facebook and raised $1,500 to help the family. That money meant the ability to go to school and to open a small business so they could continue to make money.
“”Even in Senegal, where we lost power every day at some point, I still managed to use technology to raise money,” said Lopez. “I want students to know that they can effect social change, that they need to get informed about what’s going on because they are the leaders of tomorrow.”