The Role of Adults in “Youth Led” Climate Groups: Enabling Empowerment

Abstract

This research explores young people's attitudes toward adult involvement within “youth led” youth climate groups. Young people were acutely aware of their marginalization and overall, there was a consensus that adults played a useful role as a resource, as experienced adult activists possessed knowledge that they lacked, or in offering practical support on legal issues or liaising with the police. The attitudes of young people to adult involvement is at times paradoxical in that whilst they were aware of its necessity, adults altered the dynamics of the groups, as there was a “power gap” and that adults' views could take precedence. As a result, on some occasions the young people parted ways from the adults. A continual theme from the research was that young people's involvement in “youth climate groups” gave them a sense of empowerment and they were much more aware of how to effect change, and to some extent they did need the support of adults in this process, often due to their structural disempowerment. The findings suggest that adult involvement was most successful when adults were committed to empowering young people and the researchers suggest that Kirshner's model of “cycles of fading” is a useful framework for adult involvement.

Resisting extractivism as a feminist critical socio‐spatial practice

“…On the other hand, it offers the ethical and political possibility to highlight social organizing processes whereby communities strive to reproduce their commons and resource systems by recognizing their actual embodied connection to one another, to all forms of life and the environment (Mandalaki & Fotaki, 2020). The recent surge in environmental movement mobilizations, often led by the dispossessed such as indigenous women (Carvajal et al., 2015; Castro‐Rodriguez, 2021; Hartviksen, 2021), and increasingly by disenfranchised young people in developed countries (Elsen & Ord, 2021; Fotaki & Foroughi, 2021; Henn & Pickard, 2022; Herbert, 2021), aims to respond to the escalating ecological breakdown. These mobilizations often form a part of a global countermovement, querying excessive commodification of the commons under neoliberal capitalism.…”

Supporting Youth Participation in Health and Climate Justice Through Advocacy Training Comment on "Between Rhetoric and Reality: Learnings From Youth Participation in the Adolescent and Youth Health Policy in South Africa"

“… 2 Programs that develop youth-adult relationships not only foster intergenerational connections and facilitate the exchange of knowledge, but they can also enhance communication and negotiations between young people and adults, which is often impeded by generational divides. 3 …”

“…2 Programs that develop youth-adult relationships not only foster intergenerational connections and facilitate the exchange of knowledge, but they can also enhance communication and negotiations between young people and adults, which is often impeded by generational divides. 3 Another program aimed at building relationships, "Youth Leading Environmental Change, " convenes students from six countries (Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, India, Uganda, and the United States) to participate in a workshop series focused on environmental issues, including climate change and environmental justice. The program develops peer role models through cross-cultural engagement and enables youth to see themselves as part of a global movement.…”