In May, many young Woodcraft Folk members took part in the think tank New Philanthropy Capital (Think NPC) Everyone’s Environment programme by sharing their views, thoughts and feelings about the climate and nature crisis.
DFs at their Spring Awakening event and participant’s from Young leader training, Green Influencers in Leeds and Pioneer and Venturer groups from Manchester, New Barnet and Leeds have taken part in sessions that were focused on young people having their voices heard about what decision makers should be doing to support a better sustainable future for all.
Think NPC will take the outcomes of each session and use the information to advise writing a report to the government over the next year with recommendations for fighting the climate crisis and will share the impact that the climate crisis is having on young people’s mental and physical health and what they want to see in their futures.
During the sessions, many participants shared that they had experienced climate anxiety and that climate change was something that they thought about as something impacting their futures especially around plane travel and air quality in cities.
Some participants also shared positive outlooks that “there is still some time to make big changes and make the future more sustainable but more people should know how to make the changes” – young participant, 16 from New Barnet.
The young participants took time during the sessions to use a diamond ranking system to show what they thought the government’s priorities should be to make change for the future; many listed energy use, travel methods and cleaner waters as their top priorities for change.
As part of the sessions, the participants were asked what they thought and knew their schools, colleges, councils and government were doing about climate change and what they feel they should be doing. They were also asked what they think Woodcraft Folk are and should be doing to fight the climate crisis; many shared that education about climate change and how to raise awareness were happening at Woodcraft Folk and had some great ideas of what they wanted to find out more about which will help Woodcraft Folk staff produce new activities and programme ideas for the future.