Young people are at work
If you ever wished that you were young again, assuming you are not young, then stop. In the past week I have met a ton of young people from whom I have drawn two important conclusions: 1) There are plenty of young people out there. 2) They are doing such incredible work that they don’t need us to be mucking up the works.
On Tuesday, April 1st, I attended the Teens For Planet Earth Symposium at The Bronx Zoo. There, groups from as close by as Van Cortland Park, and as far away as Washington state came together to share some of the projects that they have been working on in their communities. The projects were as varied as the students backgrounds. The projects included invasive removal in Van Cortland Park, raising bees in Bergen County New Jersey, and raising awareness of the importance of snags, nurse logs and amphibians in Washington State. All of the groups had command of their information, and the Washington State group had even run a teacher training for their local teachers. It was very impressive, to say the least.
Then on Friday, April 4th, VOICE held a mobile workshop for the Planet youth conference. Young people from Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Rocking the Boat, and The Point gave a tour to several other groups of young people from all over the country, including New Orleans and Richmond California. The YMPJ Youth Organizers presented their CSO campaign, gave a tour of the backyard rain barrel and rain garden system, and green roof on the church roof next door. Rocking the Boat youth met the group at CPP with rowboats and led a boat tour of Bronx River shuttled them down to Hunts Point Riverside Park and their program site. Finally, youth from The Point’s ACTION program took the group along the future Bronx River Greenway to their community center where their afterschool programs were in action and they heard about ACTION’s work. I didn’t get to stay for the later events, but I was very impressed with the energy of the participants as they discussed Environmental Justice in their world.
On Monday, April 7th, it was the YOUTH CAN Conference at the American Museum of Natural History. This time it was students from all over the world running the show, running workshops and panel discussions about worldwide environmental issues. There were elementary kids talking about watershed function and high school kids comparing water quality of rivers in New York and Bangladesh. It was amazing how much energy and excitement was out there.
So, George Bernard Shaw did not quite have it right; Youth is not wasted on the young. There are some incredible young people out there doing incredible things.
Add comment April 8th, 2008
