What was Post Your Change’s mission?

Post Your Change aimed to engage both communities and politicians around issues that matter, yet aren’t necessarily being heard, specifically around eating disorders. It was a movement against silence that aimed to promote understanding and dialogue.

How did we do this?

This mission can be pursued on many paths; our approach had two components. First, we conducted community outreach events that got people talking and engaging hands-on with an issue. Participants were invited to make a postcard about how they see the issue and what kind of solutions they would like to see. Second, these postcards became advocacy tools, and were sent to politicians to ask for change.

How and why was Post Your Change created?

We came from a simple dilemma: if I, as a citizen (especially a young citizen), am supposedly getting more apathetic, then why do I not feel apathetic? We want to engage in democracy, but sometimes it’s hard to know how to be heard in an age of prolific e-petitions and elections campaigns.

While wondering how to avoid becoming cynical and actually be able to send a message to politicians about what our priorities are, we found out about a wonderful feature of Canadian democracy: mail can be sent postage-free to any senator or member of parliament. Capitalizing on the gift of free postage, we wanted to promote community engagement in issues that matter to them through postcard activism. Although postcards may not be a huge public statement, they are an opportunity to create many small dialogues between citizens and the politicians that represent them.