Green Your Youth Work: supporting more youth action for nature

Do you work with young people?

Do you want to help them make a difference for the environment and community?

Then this event is for you!

Young people are leading the way in taking action to make our world better. This event is for professionals and volunteers who want to address environmental issues in their youth work, or who aspire to involve more young people in their environmental action.

We’ll hear from youth-led projects and youth-focused organizations about some of key issues, including conservation, climate change and plastic waste. There will be workshops for attendees to find ideas and resources available both in Yorkshire and more widely to support more youth social action.

Want more information? Email Ben on b.fisher@kew.org

This event is open to all groups who support young people, whether they work in the environmental sector already or are just keen to find out more.

What to Expect

We will be joined by a variety of speakers and partners (including Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, The Conservation Volunteers, Plastic Free Me and The Human Aquarium), plus we’ll hear from some exciting youth-focused projects.

Event Agenda

Morning session (11am – 12.30pm)

1) Speakers about the big issues:

• climate change
• community growing
• nature conservation
• plastic waste

2) Discussion: how does this relate to working with young people?

3) Showcase: projects in action

Networking lunch (12.30 – 1.20)

Afternoon session (1.20pm – 3pm)

1) What resources are available to us?

2) Themed discussion groups, including:

• The arts and youth environmental action
• Funding: what’s available, what challenges are there to getting it?
• Getting your hands dirty: tree planting, conservation days and community gardening
• How we engaged young people: lessons from Plastic Free Me

Note: if you are a teacher or working with schools, our friends at LESSN are running an event on 18th October that you may be interested in: http://www.leedsforlearning.co.uk/Event/101389

Getting to the Venue

Open Source Arts is based on an industrial unit in Burley just off the A65 and is easily accesible by public transport.

By bus: from Leeds City Centre get the 33, 34, 35, 508 (First Bus), 757 (Yorkshire Tiger)or 60 (Keighley Bus) to Kirkstall Road Yorkshire TV, and it’s a 5 minute walk.

By train: take the train to Leeds, then the bus, or to Burley park and walk down the hill for around 20 minutes.

By car: the venue is just off the A65 and there is limited parking on site.

About Grow Wild

Since 2015, Grow Wild (an outreach initiative of Kew Gardens) has been funding young people aged 14-25 to run their own project to connect people and nature. We’ve worked with dozens of organizations supporting youth social action, and want to share their stories. As the Year of Green Action draws to a close, we want to connect more people to support a bright future for people and planet.”