November 2022

We are delighted to announce that the Internship Program at the Brooksdale Environmental Centre in BC has changed its name to the Tatalu Conservation Residency. The renaming more accurately reflects the intentionality of the program and its evolution in recent years. 

The Tatalu Conservation Residency remains a residential apprenticeship-style program focused on living out environmental stewardship in practical and holistic ways with a theological framework. 

The impetus of the name change comes from the need to correct the term “internship”, which provincially is no longer compatible with an unpaid position. While the Tatalu Conservation Residency remains unpaid, the program content is robust with a unique live, work, and learn dimension, thus requiring an updated name to better represent the program altogether.

Tatalu — With the permission of the Semiahmoo First Nation to use their traditional term Tatalu, also known as the Little Campbell River, the word was carefully chosen to acknowledge the program’s location and study work area, while also honoring the place-based legacy of A Rocha. 

Conservation — Program residencies include instruction and practical training in concentration areas including: Conservation Science, Environmental Education, Sustainable Agriculture, or Food & Hospitality. The specificity of the term “conservation” in the new program name indicates the essence of the program and A Rocha as a whole. The term translates well in and out of faith-based contexts and can be spacious enough to catalyze conversations about the other program focuses and how they too, are related to conservation.

Residency — The program is a live-in, community based, immersive experience, and this is a crucial element of its appeal and pedagogy.

Purpose of the Program:

• To equip residents with a robust vision of creation care through invitational, immersive, and experiential learning, and theological teaching
• To provide a vibrant Christian community experience within the Residency house and the wider Brooksdale and A Rocha Canada community
• To invite residents into food and food systems education as well as ecological literacy as part of caring for creation and learning to build relationship with place
• To equip residents with practical skills in the program area(s) of their choice, including environmental education, farm to families, conservation science, sustainable agriculture, hospitality, and communications