Aidan Morishita-Miki joins Roots & Shoots as an intern for summer 2009. Going into his fourth year at the Centre for Environment within the University of Toronto, Aidan is particularly interested in environmental governance and how we perceive our environment. He likes to spend his time on campus working on theatre productions with the Victoria College Drama Society and volunteering at Caffiends, a fair-trade and organic café. Aidan is excited to be working with Roots & Shoots, and looks forward to contributing to its ongoing programming and campaigns over the summer!

Members of the Roots & Shoots Youth Leadership Council are doing some pretty cool stuff this summer. Here's a snippet about some of our youth leaders:

• Anna Bishop is working at Unicamp of Ontario as a lifeguard and Leaders in Training Facilitator
• Katie O'Connell is heading to Costa Rica to learn about fair trade coffee and eco-tourism
• Kaylee McRae is interning at the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organisation
• Izzy Hirji is working at the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada (in Guelph) as Animal Caregiver, after returning from a Field Entomology Course to Ecuador with the University of Guelph
• Jeremy Bannon is travelling to Zambia in August to volunteer in an orphanage
• Rohit Mehta is working as a summer intern at the Toronto branch of Natural Resources Canada

On Friday May 29, 2009, Jane Goodall Institute staff, volunteers and Youth Leadership Council members participated in a lantern building workshop for the Leading Light Initiative. Steve O'Gorman and Brian Tripp from STAR EcoWorks traveled to the JGI office in Toronto to lead the workshop. We're now well prepared to deliver lantern workshops to Roots & Shoots groups in the Toronto area!

The Leading Light Initiative is a Roots & Shoots campaign that aims to provide high quality solar powered LED lanterns to professionals working in rural and remote communities throughout the developing world. Your group can get involved by raising funds for lanterns and building the lanterns yourselves. Send us an email for more information.