The problems we face today are endless – climate change, inequality, military conflicts and biodiversity loss. These problems are large and daunting and we, youths, have no choice but to face them. After all, we are the future leaders who will fight these problems and will be the ones who suffer from their impacts. Are you ready?
As Kailash Satyarthi, the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, once said: “The power of youth is the common wealth for the entire world.” Thankfully, today’s generation of youth will be the largest ever in human history, in time to tackle these global unprecedented threats. We need to be ready.
Recognising the importance of youths, organisations around the world are racing to involve and empower us. One example is YSEALI (Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative), a US government programme to strengthen leadership development and networking in Southeast Asia to solve regional and global challenges. Through the YSEALI programme, the members of Recycle Dalat met and grew as leaders. Now we are passing the opportunity to 100 Southeast Asian youths through our Green Warriors workshop.
The Green Warriors workshop is a 5-week long workshop run by youths, for youths. We will invite experts to share about environmental problems, including plastic pollution and deforestation. This week, we invited Rifai, the founder of Garis Hitam Project, a social business that aims to empower female inmates and ex-convicts in the business field in Indonesia. Rifai shared his 7 years of project management experience (for both environmental and social projects) with our participants and stood as a role model on the power of youths.
Our YSEALI alumni members will also serve as mentors and impart their skills and experience to our participants. By the end of the workshop, our participants will have experience writing and presenting a proposal on their environmental problem of choice. We hope that our workshop, like YSEALI, can unite youths across Southeast Asia to protect the environment and solve common problems together.