By: Paige Britt, Follow South Jersey Intern
SOUTH JERSEY — In today’s world, many talks of the environment are surrounded by an air of hopelessness and defeat. News describing the current state of the climate is followed by declarations that it is simply too late to do anything about, and anything done must be done now. Reading this can leave someone with feelings of doom, and a “What’s the point of trying?” mindset that is helpful to no one.
West to East Global Sustainability Stories is a community led content platform with the goal of inspiring people to share positive stories about their own connection to the environment and sustainability. Other goals of WEGSS include dispelling cultural and social norms of negativity, strengthening individual connection to the global community and natural world, and empowering individuals by providing them a platform to share this content.
Co-founder of WEGSS, Francesa Mundrick, talked about the story behind the platform, why it is important, and the future of WEGSS. Mundrick connected with Nicole Troy, co-founder of WEGSS, through their shared passion of travel and sustainability.
“Myself and my close friend Nicole Troy met on an expedition called EF Ultimate Break,” Mundrick said. “I met Nicole and her friend on that trip by chance. We were joined in this spirit of travel and our sense of confidence, independence, and connecting with the world. We continued being friends for years and started talking over Covid about nature and the environment.”
Mundrick graduated from Rowan University with her BA in Geography, received her Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from UPenn, and is a Prescott College PhD candidate, so she takes protecting the environment personally.
“Connecting to the natural world is important to us professionally and personally,” Mundrick said. “Everyone around me is seemingly apathetic towards making change and people dont have the tools to fix things.This led us to develop WEGSS. It started out with these ideas of bringing people hopeful content.”
Mundrick, an adjunct professor at Rowan University, described how WEGSS works and emphasized the importance of storytelling to the platform.
“Nicole and I create content consistently on WEGSS,” Mundrick said. “It is a community led platform, but we don’t want it to be a blog. We want people to contribute to it and we have it set up that people can submit their stories. We leave it open ended for people to participate because it is meant to be a big network of people.”
Personal stories about sustainability will help connect people, according to Mundrick.
“Storytelling is human,” she said. “Sustainability connects to everything and all of us. We want to create a platform where we are able to share our own stories. I think it is kind of limited sometimes in people’s minds. Sustainability is something that is in our everyday lives and is blended into all of us, not just something that you can participate with sometimes. It is inspiring to think that any of us can interact with sustainability.”
As for the future goals of the platform, Mundrick wants WEGSS to become worldwide.
“We just launched in July,” Mundrick said. “We are looking to build the community and our social media following. People can share their global sustainability stories and join the WEGSS community. We are looking for people to join who are really inspired and connected, we want to build our membership and our following, and we want to host events and continue to make content.”
Mundrick hopes that viewers will find inspiration from the positive content that WEGSS puts out into the world.
“We are looking for people to find hope, positivity, and inspiration in a time during major transition in our world,” she said. “Before we went through Covid humanity was always changing and moving. Now it feels like the world is changing a lot and I find that a lot of things are told from a negative narrative. We want to offer people content that is different and is connecting to the deepest part of ourselves, how we connect to the Earth and sustainability. We want people to only interact with positive content and focus on empowerment and positivity. We are pulling in people who are already interested in this content but the goal is to pull in people who do not have a relationship with the environment.”
To become a part of the WEGSS community, visit https://westtoeastgss.com/, and follow them on Instagram @westtoeastgss and Facebook here.
- Atlantic County To Offer Free Flu Vaccines In October
- What’s Good In South Jersey? Summer Youth Employment Celebration – With Isaiah Showell
- What’s Good In South Jersey? Mugshots for Chi Alpha – With Isaiah Showell
Follow South Jersey provides local journalism which highlights our diverse communities; fosters transparency through robust, localized, and vital reporting that holds leaders and institutions accountable; addresses critical information needs; supports people in navigating civic life; and equips people with the information necessary to partake in effective community engagement. If there is a story or event you think we should cover, please send your tips to news@followsouthjersey.com with “NEWS” in the subject line.
