OzGREEN
ORGANIZATION NAME: Youth Leading The World
SUMMARY: YLTW is spinning an interconnected global web of change-makers, tackling wicked challenges together, through deep-listening, VIBRANT-GOALS, social-innovation and community-driven-change. YLTW empowers-repowers youth and communities to create deep-change-fast. By training local people, YLTW has scaled ten-fold, minimised costs and carbon footprint. Real-time-live-online facilitator training makes YLTW accessible even to remote communities.
PROBLEM SPACE: “We are living beyond the Earth’s regenerative capacity.
Local and global eco-systems in critical decline.
Economic and governance systems focus on continued growth on a finite planet, fuelled by massive debt (social, economic, personal, ecosystem)
Consumption and “”having more stuff”” is sold as happiness.
Massive inequity and poverty within and between nations.
Urgency – short time to design new systems, create deep change.
Positive change stories are not easily accessible.
People overwhelmed by scale of challenges leading to inaction & withdrawal.
Education systems failing to:
# teach holistic thinking .
# build understanding of complex, interconnected challenges.
Misinformation promoted by vested-interests and climate-deniers.
Political systems corrupted by influence of industrial-growth-system.
Youth disengaged, overwhelmed, increasing despair.
Youth change-makers often isolated, lack access to positive role-models and support systems to avoid burn out.
Youth need skills for ongoing innovation.
Need for trusted sources of current scientific information.
Youth can’t see how they can make a difference, lack confidence to create positive-change.
Youth are effective change-makers and educators-influencers of adults, but struggle to be heard.
Engagement programs can lead youth to believe they cannot create change as they are “”leaders of tomorrow””
Society tends to fight the old world rather than create the new.”
SOLUTION: “YLTW is spinning an interconnected global web of change-makers, tackling the sustainability crisis together, through vision, innovation and community driven change.
By training and supporting people to run YLTW in their own region, OzGREEN’s proven deep-change-fast process has scaled ten fold, whilst minimising costs and carbon footprint.
Options for face-to-face and real-time-live-online facilitator training have made the initiative accessible even to remote communities. By training and supporting local people, YLTW becomes locally owned, driven and sustainable in the long term.
YLTW begins with an annual 3-day youth eco-leadership congress conducted in multiple locations connected by digital media. YLTW enables youth to design their own pathways to fairer futures:
INFORM: local and global sustainability challenges and one planet living;
INNOVATE: action planning for personal and community change;
INVOLVE: connecting change-makers locally and globally.
On day 3 youth run a Community Forum for local leaders.
Ultimately YLTW enables youth to become serial innovators and influencers, and is building a self-organising system of distributed leadership.
Local-regional-global support circles foster collaboration and action. Achievements are recognised, success stories and challenges shared.
In the past year YLTW partners and participants have received significant awards. At the start of 2015, YLTW is poised for scale.”