How a Concordia business student helps kids build better communities

Written By Peter Allan

Michael Lecchino, president of the Conseil jeunesse de LaSalle, inside the Rêves en couleurs exhibition at the Centre culturel et communautaire Henri-Lemieux, LaSalle, Quebec. Photo submitted by Michael Lecchino

By Patricia Lane & Michael Lecchino

Michael Lecchino helps other young people see their individual climate and environmental protection actions as part of a larger whole. This business student at Concordia University in Montreal organized community-wide recycling of COVID-19 masks during the pandemic and cigarette butts clean-up in his neighbourhood parks. He hosted an art exhibition for 100 elementary school students who illustrated their dream for their home community of LaSalle with images of windmills, homes for all and better transit. He is creating guides to help university students persuade professors and business leaders to prioritize sustainability.

Tell us about your work.

I’m a founding member and president of our local youth council, the Conseil jeunesse de LaSalle (CJL). During the pandemic, we worked with the borough to place 10 bins in five municipal parks and mobilized over 100 residents to collect 1,168 masks for recycling. Youth council members, borough officials and our neighbours all saw that even when we are isolated, small, organized actions can protect shared spaces.

We noticed a lot of cigarette butts on the ground so we mapped hot spots and equipped volunteers to collect them. One butt contains over 2,000 toxic chemicals and can contaminate up to 500 litres of water as it breaks down. By collecting 5,844 butts, we prevented 2,922,000 litres from being polluted.

These projects were easy to teach and replicate with visible, measurable impacts and used simple equipment. For success, they depended on building strong partnerships between groups that don’t often work together, such as youth, government officials and neighbours. Participants can see that they have agency to care for their own streets and parks, and develop solutions that become a community-wide habit.

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Peter Allan
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