YOUTH LEADERSHIP
Our Youth Leadership Programme aims to support young people in South Africa to create meaningful change within their communities, engage in climate action, and grow into positive leadership roles throughout South African society. We do this through knowledge building, strengthening capacity, and developing environmental leadership in our youth within our various projects.
Project 90 by 2030’s work with youth started in 2007 with the Leadership Club initiative at 20 different high schools in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. We focused on developing young climate leaders at school level. This “Young Leaders” initiative ran from 2007 – 2017, throughout this time we supported the set-up of carbon-cutting clubs in order to inspire low-carbon actions. Project 90 by 2030’s work over the past 16 years has illuminated the value and importance of positive role models for young people.
Our Activities
The YouLead Initiative
In 2018, we drew from our knowledge and insight on the Leadership Clubs model and developed the “YOULEAD INITIATIVE” programme. This annual programme focuses on young people from Khayelitsha, Western Cape aged 14-17 years. ‘YouLead’ is centered around developing environmental leadership in these young Climate Leaders as we transition to an equitable, low-carbon society. As part of the YouLead Initiative, Project 90 began training and developing mentors to support the YouLead Warriors during their YouLead Lite and Plus programmes, spanning over the course of the year.
The YouLead Alumni Network
Following the YouLead Initiative programme, our young climate leaders, join the YouLead Alumni Network. This network made up from motivated youth 18 – 35 years old, is a space for further growth in deepening their understanding of climate justice issues, peer-to-peer mentoring, and opportunity sharing. We aim for this platform to be one that continues to facilitate their growth and support them in their journey’s as young changemakers in South Africa.
Afrocentric Climate Culture
The language of climate justice is often exclusionary, disconnected to the global south, and coupled to the view of the crisis being a the sole fault of marginalised people. The Afrocentric Climate Culture project aims to engage with youth to co-create Afrocentric climate knowledge to ensure that the knowledge developed, the way it is presented, and the language it is delivered in is inclusive of indigenous learnings, relevant, and applicable to the South African context. It is through reframing climate information and incorporating indigenous knowledges, local researchers, and African experts in making information applicable and relevant that we inspire urgent action.
