Youth Leadership
We offer Youth Leadership programs throughout the year. Keep checking in to see what is available. We are also part of Learn Green NYC , a coalition of sustainability professionals in education, design and enterprise in support of youth engagement, healthy learning environments and community-based approaches to low impact, high quality living. Learn more here.
2010 Youth Leadership Program: Sustainability and Entrepreneurship
Sustainability, Leadership, and a High School Journey into Urban Agriculture
By Leah Mayor and Marie-Claire Munnelly
Early on this rainy Saturday, students from the South Bronx found themselves at an unlikely spot. Turning the corner from the Morgan Street L Stop, 12 high school students folded themselves into an unassuming Bushwick pizza restaurant. However, this morning we’re not here for the pizza. We’re here to take part of a 3-day sustainability leadership series hosted by the Cloud Institute and the BrooklynGrange.
The Cloud Institute has been inspiring young people to be leaders in sustainability since 2002. Our youth program targets high school students, future leaders, to instill hope for a sustainable future fully equipped with a healthy environment, a strong economy, and a just society. Our leadership program is a mix of skill building, leadership development, and service learning. This year’s program students joined forces with Brooklyn Grange visionaries Ben Flanner, Brandon Hoy, and Gwen Schantz who gave the students an introduction to the program, a tour of Roberta’s, and an introduction to the Brooklyn Grange. Blending traditional agrarian heritage, a hipster present, and a sustainable future, the Brooklyn Grange is an aspiring rooftop farm seeking to augment Brooklyn’s Industrial landscape and mitigate rural dependency.
What better way to empower students to dream big than to see evidence of other people doing this (and succeeding) in their communities? Roberta’s (and now the Brooklyn Grange) started as a vision but has developed into a lucrative business that contributes to local food production and sustainability in action all while building strong ties with their communities. The tour included beekeeping boxes, a rooftop greenhouse, and even a giant brick oven enclosed in a steel shipping crate. Roberta’s currently grows 20% of its food in a hoop house that sits on top of a shipping container that houses a radio station. Underneath these hoops Roberta’s is growing all kinds of herbs, many flowers and vegetables. The tour highlighted the ways in which the BG farmers dove right into each endeavor, taking many small risks for the sake of diversifying their output and furthering their goal of producing all of their food.
Every great project, along with every good youth program, should start with a day in the rain.
Students coming in from the Bronx were waylaid by their lengthy commutes and weekend train schedules but they were not completely deterred. And once we got started, students got over their Saturday morning weariness and began to really delve into the issues that this millennial generation is really confronting: sustainability, justice, economic viability, and their role as emerging leaders.
We introduced them to some of the ideas we wanted to cover throughout the day:
* Thinking “outside the box” and on top of the roof tops
* Upstream problem identification and seeking to solve problems at their root
* And creating a shared vision for a positive, sustainable future
We considered what exactly it is that makes Brooklyn stand out as a sustainable business case, from their economic success, transparency and accountability to the neighborhood, inciting a story of hope and change, all while working within the parameters of ecological design and the limitations and bounty of natural systems.
Once rooted in the concepts that link sustainability and leadership, students had the perfect opportunity to turn their talk to more applied learning and service. We worked with the Grange leaders to build flower boxes for the sidewalk stressing the importance of engaging the community and becoming a positive model for others to follow, we built a rain gutter out of reclaimed PVC piping to tap into the natural hydrological cycle of the area, saving water and saving themselves money. Then we took our activities at the Grange and applied them to contributions that we could make in our own communities; inspiring leadership among youth across the city, more serviceable biking lanes, and a second tier garbage truck that picks up the litter that the current sanitation system leaves behind, were just some of the ideas that these young sustainability champions had for their neighborhoods. Many seeds were planted this week as we filled our window boxes and began starters for the Brooklyn Grange. But the most important were the seeds that connected generations across boroughs sharing in the same hope for healthy communities and a sustainable future.
Get Involved: Students, sign up for Greenopolis and enter a competition to implement change in your school and community! Or maybe you want to make a Green Map of your community? Become a Cloud fan on facebook.
Projects from Around the Country:
NY2NO: The New York 2 New Orleans Coalition (NY2NO) is a youth-led, consensus-based organization made to create a network of young people who are interested in organizing and mobilizing across New York City.
Your Students Solving Global Problems--2010 Design Science/Global Solutions Lab: The sixth annual Design Science/Global Solutions Lab will be held June 13-21, 2010 at the UN in New York and Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia.
Project Sprout, MA: the first student-initiated and student-run vegetable garden at a public high school in the United States. Read more.
Do Something believes you have the power to make a difference. It is our aim to inspire, support and celebrate a generation of doers: people who see the need to do something, believe in their ability to get it done, and then take action. At DoSomething.org we provide the tools and resources for you to convert your ideas and energy into positive action. Be part of a generation of doers.
Brower Youth Awards join youth doing projects across the country. Have an idea for a project? Start your own!
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Grant Opportunities
To accelerate social change, Echoing Green invests in and supports outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organizations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions. Through a two-year fellowship program, we help our network of visionaries develop new solutions to society’s most difficult problems. These social entrepreneurs and their organizations work to solve deeply-rooted social, environmental, economic, and political inequities to ensure equal access and to help all individuals reach their potential.
Global Fellowships – YouthActionNet®’s Global Fellowship Program targets exceptional young social entrepreneurs anywhere in the world who have developed innovative approaches to addressing issues of international relevance. Learn More!
The Sparkplug Foundation offers grants for projects in three areas: music, education and grassroots organizing.
The Merck Family Fund was established in 1954 by George W. Merck, President of Merck & Co. He created the fund for two principal reasons: to do good with the resources acquired through the company's success, strengthen the social fabric and the physical landscape of the urban community, and to restore and protect the natural environment and ensure a healthy planet for generations to come.
Sponsored by the Cyber Peace Initiative (CPI) and Internet Society (ISOC), the World Summit Youth Awards' mission selects and promotes best practices in e-Content and technological creativity that demonstrates young people’s potential to create outstanding digital content and serve as a platform for people from all UN member states to work together in the efforts to reduce poverty, hunger, ill-health, gender inequality, lack of education, lack of access to clean water, and environmental degradation.
