IYD2026 Celebration - On the Road to COP31: Youth Leading Zero Waste and Climate Action

Welcome, everyone.
My name is Doug Reagan.
I work for the Climate Champions Office for COP 31.
Really excited to have everyone here on this International Youth Day where we're going to be celebrating sustainability, but more specifically waste and climate action and all that entails.
So we're really excited to be able to have some great speakers and such to be here to kick this off.
We're also going to be looking back at the Zero Waste Forum, where we adopted the Declaration that will I think we're figuring that out, but I think it'll probably come at the end of this session, but there's another session that follows this.
This session specifically is just looking at all the different actions young people are taking youth groups from all over the place.
We've got youth groups from Ghana, from Kenya.
There should be someone here, and then we're also supposed to have someone here from Ecuador, so I'll get them online too.
We're really excited to note that we will be showing a welcome from Sally Higgins, who is the climate champion from Australia.
She's the youth climate champion.
I work for the climate Champions Office for all of C.
She's specifically the youth climate champion she will put her on stage.
But I want to pass this over to Anna is, who will be facilitating and moderating this session.
So over to you, Annas.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Anise Ku, and I'll be your moderator today.
And so I was present at the Zero Waste forum and I work extensively on climate action as well, and I'm very happy to be moderating this conversation.
And we'll start the conversation by projecting the video of Sally Higgins first.
I'll share my screen right now.
Great.
I think we have to add her to the stage.
Let me do that.
Does it work? It does work Reachal Queensland.
Okay.
Do you have this.
Okay.
We'll start again.
My name is Sally.
I'm from a small town called Ara on the Darling downs in regional Queensland.
Over the course of my term as the youth climate champion for Cop 31, my focus will be on elevating the perspectives of young people and elevating the great work and community led action that's already taking place around the world.
My partner, Gus and I run our own farm at home in Ara.
It's a mixed cattle and cropping farm.
We absolutely love farming, and we love being connected to the land and the opportunity to be connected to the agricultural industry in our home community.
For the last two years, I've been completing a Enfield farming scholarship, looking into how to manage and respond to the competing demands on agricultural land use.
My home region on the Darling downs is experiencing a lot of competition for agricultural land, and natural resources, and I wanted to look at how are other countries and industries managing those competing demands and how can we balance multiple objectives, both for the climate, for industries, and for communities.
Having a champion as an official COP role is really important because it institutionalizes the voice of youth in climate decision making.
So it's not decision makers making decisions for today, but rather thinking about what's important for future generations and for their future generations as well.
Thank you very much.
I will start Sheriff Krišto right now, and it should be okay now.
Thank you very much, Sally, for organizing this little message to introduce our panels today and representing the you for COP 51.
Now we would like to start with the opening reflections from the different youth leaders that are present today at the conversation.
We have this idea that when we have the opening reflections, we'll take 3 minutes for each speaker to introduce a little bit about their work, how sustainability is more than just waste management, but it's linked to livelihood, job creation, and also education.
And we have Damaris with us, and I would like if it's possible to start with you.
So Damaris, through Aquila you're working at the intersection of sustainable enterprise, local employment, and conversation, including creating opportunities for women through Masai inspired garment production.
And my first little question for you.
Thank you very much.
Could be, could you tell us about your work and how creating a local economic opportunity can also contribute to environmental and climate action.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much.
My name is Damaris Nilante Lasyer and greetings from the Masai Mara.
I'm here today representing the Kenya Cycling Innovation Hub and Anker, which is our workshop, which is where I'm standing today.
And as a young woman who has been born and raised in the indigenous way of life, I was born into the Marsai community, and we have been brought up in the Maats.
And so we understand the importance of saving and reusing everything.
Even our houses and how we have lived our life has always been very green.
So bearing that in mind and coming forward with that history of how I've been brought up, I have now started doing waste economy, basically, fabric and glass waste.
That's the two kinds of waste that we collect and we upcycle.
In the last month, we have acquired 300 kilos of waste denim, and they came in bales in two bales, and we transported those from Nairobi into our workshop here in the Masai Mara.
And we have finished the first and second phase of cleaning because we have to get rid of the dart and then disinfect.
And we just finished our second phase of cleaning, and we'll be going to the third and fourth and fifth phases in the next week.
After that, we have already started coming up with a collection of what we are turning the waste into because innovation is such an important element and aspect of what do we do with this waste that we have collected.
And now we are working with local artisans from the Masai Mara, and we have three categories that we are doing.
So it's a corporate collection.
In this collection, we have clothes, we have shoes, and we have bags.
So we have come up with the drawings and the different, um, styles of how we are going to be doing this.
And then from there, we are now starting we've already started the sampling process this week.
Next week, we now start working on the collection.
We'll be launching that on the 3rd of October 2026 is when we'll be doing the official launch of this collection.
So we have about seven weeks and it's up and down, but it is such an empowering thing to see all the youth come together from this area because we have about 30 people that we partnered with and are working with so far until this point, and will continue to do this.
And so in another seven weeks, we'll be able to report back and say, Okay, so this is what 300 kilos of West Denim can become.
That's what we are doing here in the Mara, partnering with our partners in Nairobi.
And together, we are able to turn these 300 kilos into something of value.
And that's just one of the stories of how innovation comes into play when it comes to the circular economy.
Thank you so much Haris.
You must be very excited to see the launch of your project going live.
A lot of work, but very meaningful work.
Thank you very much.
That gives also a very important perspective about climate and environmental action that doesn't really need to be separate from economic development.
It's actually built into it.
Now, I would like to go and ask a question to Faith.
Faith, can you hear me? Does it work? I have to add her to the stage just a second.
No worries.
Okay.
And, Stephen, we will ask a question to you just afterwards.
Okay.
There you go with faith.
I'm going to remove Damerus now.
That's just you anyways.
All right.
How's it going, Faith? It might be the Wi Fi.
Maybe we can go to Stephen and then Yes.
And then once Faith comes on, Steven or Sdrock or yeah, Stephen.
It's Stephen.
Hello.
Good morning, afternoon, evening, wherever you are.
Exactly.
Good morning from New York.
So I would like to go toward you for the continuation of the open reflection and ask you about your work, your projects, and your visions about climate, waste, but also opportunities linked to that.
You've been working with Unit children and youth major group, including on the Mota Declaration Zero Waste and circularity and the global Waste Management Outlook of 2024 for youth.
My little question would be, from the perspective of young people engaged in international environmental processes, how are you seeing zero waste move beyond being a technical waste management topic and issue and become part of the broader climate agenda? Thank you for the question.
I will limit my answer to 3 minutes.
Is it possible for me to share my screen? I think so.
Yes.
Okay.
I will share my screen.
So yeah.
Okay.
Now, why is that? Yes.
Is it feasible to all I hadn't known they were sharing the screen.
Let me see here S slides and PDFs.
What was that? Okay.
I have to you probably have to message it to me and then I'll load it up.
But why don't you start why don't you email it to me? You need to press the.
Anyways.
We'll do.
It's okay.
Send it to me and I'll get you the Okay.
But, I will try once more because I think I just dontlo this SPDF and then I will share again SPDF it should take longer time.
But okay, I will start with my introduction.
Okay.
So my name is Steven from Indonesia and I'm representing the Children to UNEP.
So to UNEP, this is the right time because a Now, can you see my screen? No, I'm still uploading, but I will try to explain.
Okay.
So we in children and youth group to UNP, we are the and youth constituency, that is a formal youth engagement mechanism as one of the nine major groups mandated in the Rio Declaration 1992 Summit and also recognized by Union resolution seven slash six.
We represent more than 2000 youth organizations and networks, 68 of which are unit accredited, and we also have over 15,000 individual members from 130 plus countries.
So as you can see, I think I have uploaded the slide and you can see my slide.
So this is the numbers that you can see.
So we support youth and family leadership through active policy advocacy, expanding youth access to decision making processes, and we also build capacity.
So that's a little bit of our profile.
To answer the question on how the waste management zero waste and climate action can be integrated together, not just as a technical problem, but also as an environmental governance process.
I think the first thing that we need to see is to engage those local youth in their local level to engage and to be introduced with other kinds of stakeholders.
Let's say we have NGO that works with processes like, for example, a FAO, et cetera, they need to contact first the people inside that you and buddies and or other kinds of stakeholders that have engaged before.
Then usually one trick that is useful for you is to follow the calendar, follow the calendar of the organization that publish their agenda, for example, on climate action, follow the calendar of UNFleC, UNEP follow the calendar of UNEP.
Then when they open for submission and or when they open for activities like for example, the UNFleC cop 31 in Atalia, we need to search how to be involved there.
For example, searching for accreditation.
And then one trick that I can say as a youth, how to translate those technical work that we have done into the decision making process is by creating written statement that contains both of your impact, but also recommendation.
For example, through the global waste management Outlook, we also consult this document to the local youth to make sure that For example, some of the terms that have been hard to understand or had to be translated into many local language, we consult the youth, for example, in your area, what kind of terms that you use for zero ways.
In Motani Declaration, another example, we engage with the local youth in Japan on, for example, what is the meaning of Mo Tinai if it's translated in English? Can you give an example? Those kind of life experience within you, we believe that it needs to shape the policy and the recommendation that we bring into the global I think later or other people will explain how we do it during the zero waste forum in Antalia.
I'm really grateful also for their help that we as the global youth can gather together, bring our life experience to inform policy.
So I think my 3 minutes have been up, so thank you.
Thank you very much, Steven, for those insights.
From the perspective of youth, we can see that it's very important to bridge young people, what is they are doing and how does experience enter international discussions and how it is also meaningful and inspiring work that can lead to new perspective international discussions.
Now we would like to go to Faith.
If Duke you could give the mac to Faith, that would be very appreciated.
I don't see Faith here.
No.
Faith isn't here, unfortunately.
So and Emmanuel is not here, so we might go directly to the moderated conversation between Steven Emmanuel is Emmanuel is here.
Emmanuel is here.
So if we could continue with Emmanuel.
Good.
So I'm just kidding.
Oops, what am I doing here? Okay.
What am I doing? So Emmanuel should be on stage.
Yes.
Hello Emmanuel? Hello, everyone.
Yes, I can hear you.
Perfect.
Very nice to meet you, Emmanuel.
So we would like to begin the conversation with you and you approach the issues through education, institutional exchange, including ecos eco campus, your reporters for the environment, and work supporting Ghana's national Waste recovery platform.
And the conversation I would like to have with you and the first question would be, why is education, institutional engagement so important for changing how communities understand and act on wastes? Could you give us an example of where have you seen that translates into lasting action? Okay.
Thank you very much for that.
My name is Imano Ackerman, and I'm the national operator of the Eco Schools program here in Ghana, as well as the Young Reporters for the Environments Programs here in Ghana at the Center for Sustainable Transformation.
So I think it makes sense that I approach the question from the perspective of where we are.
In Ghana, for example, we found that most people, especially young people, do not begin to hear of the concepts or the concepts or the meanings of sustainability, circular economy, and sustainable development until we have advanced to the tertiary level of education.
What we are trying to solve at c using our two educational programs, mostly and particularly the Ecosource program is to see how we have the topic or the concept of sustainability embedded into the curriculum such that young people as early as the primary level begin to have access to Begin to have access to education for sustainable development.
So that for the most part shaped what we are doing at the Center for Sustainable transformation.
For example, I would use a project that we are currently implementing for the Ministry of Environment Science and Technology.
It's a pilot that was done in two phases.
The second phase is actually still ongoing and experiences that we learned from that pilot, which was both curriculum and project based is when it comes to these parts of the world, people become more familiar and the connected and are able to relate more with the concepts of secular economy, the concepts of education for sustainable development or sustainability itself.
Holistically when it is approached from the perspective of it being both theoretical and it being curriculum based.
So our experience or that experience has taught us that in order to have understanding these concepts, we have to begin at the schools, at the grassroots, and then advance the concepts as we go along all the way to the tertiary level.
Experience with the communities and with the schools has shown and taught us that the earlier we begin this in schools, the better for us, and that is mostly what shapes our work at the center of sustainable transformation.
Thank you very much, man Yuen.
We already heard several different entry points, livelihood, youth action, enterprise, education, institutions.
But they all come back to the same question, how do we turn these individual solution into lasting systems? That's why we would like to explore now through the moderated conversation, different elements of this question.
We would start with the economic and community dimension and it would be appreciated if we could bring Dems and Faith to answer to those questions.
Sure.
Thank you.
We'll bring everyone back on the stage.
Thank Faith isn't here right now.
I can't get Faith on and then I have to There we go.
Oops.
Everyone on the screen? Yes.
There's this first question I had, which was with the economic and community dimension.
So a lot of zero waste work doesn't actually begin with saying we need to meet a climate target.
It begins with something much more immediate.
Young people need jobs, communities need income, food needs to be protected, waste is creating a local problem.
Our ecosystems need to be protected.
So why can't starting with those practical problem actually make climate and environmental change stronger? For example, Demas, I had a very specific question for you if possible.
Is some you connect closely to your work as well with this idea that livelihoods are also important when addressing climate change.
Aquila you demonstrated and already talked about it and the question I had what does your experience tell us about the idea that climate action can also build economic development and how could you connect to this idea that your work was first on a local basis and then you joined the global initiatives? Thank you, Anaise for that question.
I think it's very important that we look at the grassroots and what individuals can do because the day to day practices of the people is what accumulates and becomes the bigger problem.
And before we get to the policies, it's mostly about how we live life on a daily basis.
I think one of the most important things is, how can we create a source of livelihood while still solving an imminent problem.
And one of those things, one of the things that I learned when I visited Nairobi at the Masare FC and what they are doing with the Misari River is there's a lot of young people that have come together and are now instead of going and doing a lot of destructive practices out there, they are now coming together to clean this river.
And from that river because a lot of clogging that was happening and flooding that was happening in Nerby was a direct result of all this waste fabric that had now gotten its way into the rivers.
When we went there and collected the 300 kilos, one thing that I noticed is a lot of young people were now getting a source of livelihood from the collection of the waste and people like me who are now in the innovation aspect, after we've collected this waste, we come back to this workshop and we work with local youth around this area, creating a job opportunity for them, and also, it's a learning curve for these young people instead of tossing the waste or tossing that old clothes.
We are now teaching them that there's another way you can look at that.
How can you turn that into something that's of value? If it's that old pair of sugar.
How can we make a bag out of that so that whenever you go shopping, you have your bag while you still have your sugar? You know, so these are some of the conversations that we are having on the ground with the young people is how to look at waste, not as waste, but as a resource that can be used and can be used to make something else.
And that is part of the education that we are doing here in the Mara and also with our partners in Nairobi using Monoango Initiative.
I hope I gave a bit of insights and I answered your question.
Yes.
I had a follow up for this.
Do you think adding climate language to those initiatives helps attracts, support, or can it sometimes distract from the practical problem you're actually trying to solve? Thank you so much.
So the language, you see, for someone who has been in recycling and in the circular industry for a minute, it comes naturally.
But the people on the ground, there's certain terms like upcycling, recycling, reusing, they do not understand that.
I think it's very important that these conversations are included even in the education system at the very beginning of the education system in schools, is introducing this kind of conversation and once the people starts to grow with that knowledge already in them, then it's easy for them to understand this language because you cannot go to a community and tell them, you have to recycle.
You have to start with what is waste? How does that come into play? It is a process and it requires very intentional language and communication when it comes to the people that we are talking to.
So yes, language is very important in the sense that we do have the language that is going to enable people to understand what is happening in the higher aspect and in the policymakers sort of rooms and community, but also the language that the people in the grassroots can understand that they can talk about this problem of waste management.
Yes.
Thank you very much, Dems.
From now, I would like to move to another dimension of the discussion.
It's really in this idea of local action to global policy that Stephen already introduced a little bit.
So we've now moved to the institution level.
But we're heading toward COP 31, and COP is a political process.
And so the question becomes, how do we make sure that what communities and young people are actually doing on the ground influences international policy rather than policy being developed without those experiences? And I had this little question to Stephen.
Stephen, I'd like to come to you first because of your experience with UNIC children that you emphasized and presented just before.
And the question I had was, what has to happen for youth led and community led experience to actually shape international policy? And perhaps more importantly, what prevents that from happening today? Okay.
This is an interesting question.
Thank you.
So I always a believer of a bottom up model.
So let's see.
But bottom up model cannot happen if there is no engagement from the top.
So first of all, I would like to give an appreciation for the UN bodies that have been open for this kind of processes.
I can say that the Rio Declaration of 1992 really helped us to make sure that the UN bodies are open for stakeholders engagement, that the first one.
Second one, on how those local actions can inform global policy.
I will give an example of CYMG because I'm from CYMG.
So we are currently opening a program called youth Ephra Dialogues, or Y EDX or white X, you can see the inspiration of the name.
So the idea of white X is to make sure that those practitioners, let's say that I am I myself was waste workers in the past because I manage organic waste of the one of food and beverage company.
So the people in a country can come to this designated white X Hub or white X meeting, and they can say, what are their experience in this, this, that.
But we as UYMG, we make sure that each of the local white X is connected to the global process.
So for example, for UNSCO, we have US we have In COP, we have many kinds of processes, for example, like SBI or SBSDA.
In UNP, we have the United Nations Environment Assembly and they have their resolutions in the past year that we can discuss.
So we shape the discussion of these local heroes based on the global policy and global resolutions that have been accepted before.
There has been any spoilers of the next year agenda or the next two years agenda.
We shape the conversation according to the teams.
So we make sure that both the experiences of the local people are represented, but also their representative can be translated to the global process.
So we speak the same language.
It has happened in Botswana.
So we have white ex Botswana in Gabaron.
We collected 60 young people and they gather in NPP in Gabaron because I was also part, although I manage it through online because I'm in Indonesia, But we managed to connect them with the stakeholders in Botswana and hopefully they created a declaration that will inform the processes to be brought up in the next UNA.
For climate, we can say to the next cop, I will give appreciation for our constituencies constituency ngo.
Yung is the official constituency for climate, and they have their own Conference of Youth.
Conference of Youth, you have the Regional Conference of Youth, you have Local Conference of Youth.
And every year, they open an application of local NGO to host this kind of dialogue.
This is what I say with bottom up action shaping the global action.
What are the hindrances of people to participate? I can say, first of all, the first one and foremost is the logistical problem for young people.
For example, let's say we are talking about the problem in affordable TCAP affordable sometimes accreditation.
As we can say that UNF C accreditation are getting more and more strict in the requirements.
For example, we need to, for example, review and see whether this is actually harmful or benefit for the youth.
Those kind of logistical problems.
Then the second one is if the culture of a country or an organization hinders the young people to say.
For example, I can say we have in some countries cultural barrier that, I think we need to let the older people speak first because they have more experience.
It's true that they have more experience because they have lived longer than us.
But it doesn't mean that youth have not had their own experience because after all, the ones who will shape the future will be youth because this is just logic, youth will grow in age and then at some point we will be the domino age range group, and we need to make sure that we don't repeat the mistakes that our past generation, but that doesn't mean we exclude the past generation.
We need to work together with the past generation.
That's why we always in CYMG present the intergenerational equity as a principle that needs to be included in all of the processes during the processes of negotiation itself and during the intersectional period of the negotiation itself.
So that's what I can say for now.
Thank you very much, Stephen.
I would have a follow up question for you.
We also talk about a lot of youth engagement, youth empowerment for climate action, and there is increasing opportunities to be part of this discussion because we recognize the youth and there is a movement towards this to understand youth as not just representative, but also as actors.
And my question would be, what would be meaningful youth participation look like beyond simply being invited into the group? Who wants to answer first.
So please.
It's for me? Yes, exactly.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I thought you want to engage with someone else, but okay.
No worries.
So first of all, I think I would like to appreciate that you have been more and more being invited in this kind of processes.
I would like to tell the story not a long story, but a short story of the union resolution sets last say.
I mean, the first step of being having a meaningful youth participation is, of course, to let the youth sit in the table, sit in the participation, for example, the UNA process, the UMS process, and others of the process related to zero waste, for example, and we are really grateful for the opportunity that has been opened by the you embodies, by the stakeholders.
We are really grateful and we are also really grateful that some of the member states, I can say they have been opening doors for youth to participate in their national delegations.
I can say I know some of my colleagues who become the youth negotiator, for example, for hundreds that have a need for capacity development to how to engage with this kind of negotiations.
So that's why we have the UNA resolution seven slash slash six.
The UN resolution slash six is about I will read to you UN resolution seven slash six, and maybe in the future, I can share the document with you all.
But the theme of that resolution, a resolution means by a set of documents that have pre ambulatory paragraphs and also operational paragraphs that mandates member states who are enrolled to a process to make sure that those documents, the points that are in the documents are being taken action for.
So the name of the resolution is okay, it's loading Yeah, enhancing the meaningful participation of youth in environmental process and enhancing environmental education.
So when we are talking about meaningful youth participation, let's say I have to connect it also with zero waste and climate action, we do not only mean that youth needs to be involved in the negotiation, is able to create a statement and also, for example, hopefully have the same set or equal set to give also, for example, input towards future negotiations, we will be very happy to But it doesn't mean that your participation shall be in only meeting rooms.
In the resolution, we include the environmental education and literacy, as well as the competencies needed for sustainable development.
It's a quote from operative paragraph two of the Union resolution seven slash six.
It means that Steven Steven Steven, we have about 10 minutes left.
So maybe we can move on to other speaking to.
That would be great.
Thank you.
So And you were getting into paragraph two and being a UN person, when you start talking about paragraphs and sub paragraphs, we all know we're in trouble.
So I was just trying to help along here.
Anyways.
No problem.
So thanks.
Maybe you can wrap up, but Yes.
So it means that one of the practic associated I will give is Efron education and literacy needs to be included in national processes.
So that's all I can say.
Thank you very much, students.
It's really insightful.
And now we would like to bring it back to COP 31.
So we've talked about what happens in communities, what makes those initiative last, and it can influence to policy.
So let's bring this directly to CP 31.
And so the question is, if government and international institutions are serious about treating zero waste as part of climate action, what is one things they need to do differently between now and CP 31 and we have one concrete action from each of you, it would be very interesting.
And if we have Faith and as well, Emmanuel that could join us, that would be very interesting.
Just one concrete action.
That's it, to broad work.
I will let the other experts.
Okay.
Please.
While waiting waiting, I will start.
One concrete action that needs to be done differently between now and the cop 31 is more dialogues.
So more direct dialogues between government, member states representative, other stakeholders and you.
And I'm being thankful for the Sally here and also Smit who have been also facilitating this kind of dialogue to happen in their own countries, in many countries, but also all countries need to do the same, not only waiting for them.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Is Faith Emmanuel and Demares here ready to answer? Okay.
So we might continue with the closing rooms.
Oh, here we have Emanuen.
Thank you very much, Emanuen.
Could you perhaps give us one concrete action for CP 51 to treat zero wastes and climate action and one thing that we need to do differently and that is on the agenda for CP 21 that you want to see.
What do you speaking from my part of the world, we rely very heavily on single use plastics in this part of the world.
So our drinking water, for example, comes in something the packaging that we call sas water bags.
And unfortunately, these are some of the most common pollutants that we have around us.
We have the other one called tikiE or styrofoam packs.
And for us young people in Ghana, what we are looking to see the government do very urgently, and this is in the wake of recent flooding events, as you may have read from the news.
So our gutters are clogged.
We rely so much on single use plastics that you wouldn't find in other parts of the world.
So for us young people, what we want the government doing urgently, before in the long run, we focus more on EPR policies and building better waste management infrastructure.
We just want to see our government ban some of these single use plastics that we believe we can do without.
So for their priority, most urgently, those are some of the things.
And on the part of the government, they've started making moves towards banning some of the single use plastics that I mentioned.
So the most common or popular one is the Styrofoam pack.
So starting next year, they'll begin an enforcement on the usage of such styrofoam packs because they are some of the most popular and common comps that we have around us.
So that's it for us in Ghana.
That's what we would like to see the government do very urgently.
Thank you, Main.
Demas, could we have one little concrete action you would like to see? Absolutely.
Thank you, Ace.
I think one thing that I would be thankful and grateful to see our government do is stop the importation of secondhand clothes from all around the world into the country into Kenya.
And this is because we have a lot of Yes, we do have a lot of jobs that were created using the secondhand clothes, but only 30% of them actually make it out of those markets.
This becomes such a big problem for the people who are selling secondhand clothes.
And you see when it comes to fabric, it's not very easy to recycle fabric, you know, unless you have a tailoring shop or you are in partnership with other companies that can actually help.
So if we can stop the importation of these secondhand clothes from all around the world and we can start to manage what we already have that is already causing a very big problem, we can start to see this problem of fabric waste start to finish.
So that, for me, is the one thing that I would like our government to do as we head to COP 31.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We learned a lot from you from your actions and ideas.
And what we're hearing is that zero waste recycle starts as a climate strategy, is not the only reason as well.
It starts as a way to solve a real problem.
It's also about jobs, food or land, and we need to take that into action and the climate benefit follows it.
And so education and training turned that word into something lasting as we saw.
You've driven declarations carried into the UN policy.
And so this is the bottom of effect that we're seeing.
And so between now and COP 31, the TAs this connecting Community Action institution and international policy into one b.
And thank you very much to Sally again for sharing her video and to Faith, Steven, Maris, and Jacqueline for sharing your experience today.
And thank you thank you everyone for joining us.
Now I'd like to look into briefly the presentation of the U Declaration on Zero Waste and climate action that was discussed in Istanbul for the waste conference and then that was worked on.
I would like to bring now a presenter to present the U Declaration to close the session and carrying the panel's discussion to a formal state.
Douke will be presenting the youth declaration? I don't know.
Can people hear me speak? Yes, we can.
Okay.
I have no idea because I can't hear anybody else.
So I think we need to transition to the next session or we sorry.
I kind of have to leave it up to you guys to direct everyone can hear me, but I can't hear you.
So we are we transitioning to the next section? Do, we're talking about the youth Declaration that was discussed in the zero waste Youth Declaration.
Can you hear me? No.
I think there's, like, a little issue on this end.
Do we have.
Can you speak briefly briefly as we move into the next section.
And I'm really sorry.
I have no idea what's going on.
One of the things we're going to do during this session as well as next is talk a bit about the Youth Declaration, which was adopted at the Zero Waste Foundation forum in June, June 6th seventh, and now it's been sent out around.
We've had it presented by the young diplomats.
Unfortunately, the young diplomats couldn't be here because they have their huge phosphorus conference where they have the president and everyone coming, so they weren't able to make it, but they send their regrets.
The declaration is key to holding this together from the policy sense.
The action you've all expressed, which is amazing, needs to also have the framework of policy within it, or we can't have it, as we say in the UN system, go to scale.
And so that's where we need to we'll send the declaration around again.
We encourage people to send it around locally, nationally in their own countries so that we can again look at all these different all the different impacts of how that could impact policy at many levels.
So that's as much as I'll go into it.
I'll post the link to everyone on the WhatsApp chat because most people are and on the Instagram, so in case people have come in from other places, and, yeah, that's it.
And I will pass it over to Annie East to then pass it over to Linda as I try to figure out.
Yes.
My audio issue.
Go ahead.
Yes.
Thank you very much, Doug, for presenting the Youth declarction.
We will now close our session and we're going to hear the we'll now be going to another panel on session two with Linda.
If Linda can take over, it would be very much appreciated.
Again, a big round of thank you for all our speakers today.
Great.
So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to thank everyone from session one, ask you to hang around if you want, that'd be great.
And I'm going to remove you all from the stage, and then we'll move into Session two.
So here we go one by one.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Tamars, thank you, Emmanuel.
Sorry Face couldn't make it if I can find out.
And then, Stephen, you're back again.
We're moving again.
Okay.
So now I'd like to introduce.
And again, just to note, I can get no audio, so if you tell me anything, you have to do to me like WhatsApp.
I'd like to introduce to you, Linda Geggy.
Who will be, I think I hear you, Linda, will be the moderator for this session.
Over to you, Linda.
Good morning, everyone.
Doug, can we just do a test? Can you hear me okay? I can hear you.
I have no idea what's going on and why it just suddenly started dropping off, but I'm putting people on stage.
There you go.
Now, I can't hear you.
So go for it.
Thank you for your past Linda here.
It examines who's included and who's left out as zero waste and climate action scale towards CP 31.
The speakers today are going to bring their perspectives from indigenous led conservation, community organizing, food security, and international youth advisory structures.
The conversation Ground the principles of leaving no one behind.
In concrete experience connecting local land stewardship and community action with global climate processes.
We look at the central question as climate and zero waste action scales towards CP 31, who gets to participate, whose knowledge shapes the solutions, who benefits, and who is still being left behind.
So I want to welcome everybody here today.
We have an amazing lineup of speakers.
Good morning.
Today, hopefully we will have joining us Lennon Zambrano from the Ativano Center in Ecuador, Shadrach Otio from the Nana Experience in Kenya, Erin Black from my hometown, the Mustard seed in Victoria, Canada, and Tamara Valua from Waters right.
So I'm going to begin by asking each of the speakers to take a few minutes to share an experience from your own context.
Rather than giving us a formal presentation today, we'd really like to hear about concrete examples that help bring the issue to life.
So from your experience, who is most at risk at being left out of the climate and zero waste action, and what does meaningful inclusion look like in practice? I encourage you to share an example from your community work.
Who is being left out of experience and have barriers to participation and what meaningful inclusion or community leadership might look like today? So we'll try and keep it short so everyone has time to participate.
But let's hear about let's start with Shadra Good morning, Shadrak.
Yeah, good morning to you all.
It's evening here.
It's around 440.
Yeah, we've had a very good day.
We've celebrated this day an amazing day, and I'm glad that Tamara also from us right joined us today and we did replanting and the community cleanup work.
It was amazing day.
So first and foremost, my name is Sandra.
I run an organization known as Nan Experience.
It is a community organization located in Nairobi, Kibera.
And what are we doing? For us, we are all about supporting and transforming the community, whereby we run five different activities.
One of the activity being the girls' empowerment program, where we provide girls with towels.
They walk through they walk into our offices, center to and use them, that is for deating girls.
Then also, as part of the girls' empowerment, we are currently doing bid works where we create a some wonderful jewelry from peppers, very peppers to very beautiful beads.
I got a chance to bring some to Istanbul.
I think a few of you guys saw them.
And now we are space for girls, whereby we are empowering them in terms of introduce the bastop making activity for the girls.
Right now, they're creating basop liquid stop, and Donie for laundry mostly.
So right now we are setting up a space for them, just a shop where they can after making the stock, they'll be able now to sell them and gain something at the end of the day.
This program is dominated by young mothers.
Those are girls that got pregnant at a very early age, let's say from 17 years to 20 years, but we are also just trying to make sure that they have something to do at the end of the day.
So our second activity is oh, yes, we also have a tailoring program where we train girls also how to sewing activities and also linking them with jobs in different companies and different organizations.
Yeah, so that's about our girls and women empowerment.
Then now we have a back to school activity where we take children back to school.
Any child that has that cannot access education, we check them and support them, take them through education and pay their school fees and all that.
Then we also do We also do a community feeding program where every weekend we hold an activity of feeding 500-1 thousand children moving in different sides of Hebra community.
So we visit different spaces.
And so we have a small feeding program that we do inside this hall where I am now.
It's known as an ordinary Place.
So in here we are able to feed like 100 children, like in the evening, Then when we're doing outreaches, then now we feed 500-1 thousand children, that is during the weekends.
Then, aside from that, we are now working on how to recycle textile waste, and this is something that we are doing together with Mototu and mas from Narok.
So we are also just trying to see how we can create employment from textile waste to.
So apart from just getting them from the drainage, which creates a lot of which blocks the drainage, which also cause a lot of floods in Nairobi, we also intend to change the textile waste into something meaningful and something that can create employment to youth in the community.
Yeah.
And there was a question that you had asked that, whom do you think is left out? When it comes to climate action.
So about climate action is something that we believe that it is a responsibility for each and every person.
No one shall be left out.
And right now we are also trying to see how we can gate children, especially school going children.
Because now talking of pollution, talking of food waste, if we can put structures inside schools.
So what we are actually planning to do is visit different schools, create a club, an environmental club inside the school.
We help them setting up, then we will be supporting them when necessary.
I think it's something that we should be able to help us eradicate a lot of dumping and a lot of food waste here.
So we are a very new organization.
We are 4-years-old, but we are thinking of just making these things work.
And also, when we were in Istanbul, we relearned a lot that we still need to do as an organization.
A lot of things that we still need to talk to people about.
It's not everyone that appreciates what we are doing, but if we can come together and sensitize and talk to people just to understand the essence of doing this because in an informal settlement like bera, what we are lacking right now is a lack of holding spaces.
You see, today we did a community cleanup.
But now a where we normally use as a holding site is a space that belongs to the Kenya railways.
And right now, they don't want to see people dumping using that space as a holding space because the county government is taking a lot of time to take the garbages from the holding site.
So it's now like it was actually now like turned to a dumping site, which is not a dumping site.
So we are still we are still trying to see what are the best mechanism that can be used to make sure that everything is working.
Yeah.
We are glad to have to have been part of today's event.
I must say it was great.
It was really great.
Thank you.
Hey, S that is amazing what work you folks are doing and the holding of space, I think is a really interesting way of supporting inclusion and supporting you talked about both children and youth.
I'm going to move us over now to Tamara.
Tamara, I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you're doing and really, how are you working to include youth in your work, as well as to remove barriers to participation.
Can you tell us from your perspective? Thank you.
Hi, good afternoon or evening or morning wherever you are.
Can you hear me? Yes.
Thank you.
Okay.
Happy International Youth Day to everyone.
My name is Tamar Vala.
I am a woman in Washington for the Water Is right Foundation.
I would just like to ask you to repeat your previous question, Linda.
Yes, we often talk about including indigenous people, youth, and communities in climate processes.
Being invited into the conversation is different than having influence.
What does meaningful participation look like to you? Okay.
So for someone who currently considers herself a youth, I do think the ideas I would have would also mostly be focused on my peers or people around my, let me see geographical vicinity of people we are kind of age mates with.
So I really agree with what you've said that there is a difference between maybe having conversations and creating awareness about, um, who gets to do what compared to the actual practicality of doing it.
And I do think in terms of climate change, there is a certain, very subtled bias in how people perceive climate change and how it's affecting us because of the way we were taught about it in school, it's that this is this whole big and harrowing experience that is happening to our world, and we need corporations and maybe the big wigs to come and assist us.
So it kind of made us believe that we do not have the power to do it from ourselves locally, right? So it's just like, oh my God, this is global warming, something about the ozone layer, the Earth is rupturing and all that, but we don't look at it in a way that, okay, something's happening in New York, but I am in Nairobic Kenya.
How am I going to think about or even look for solutions on how I could solve the problems in Nairobi Kenya first before I get to New York.
So that's something I've kind of observed, even in myself because that is how it was introduced to me.
And I would really like for us as youth to kind of have a different mindset that, you know, yes, there are problems to what is happening about the climate and waste, but as much as it looks and feels like this tumultuous, colossal thing that's ever growing, we can do and start with small steps.
So to kind of answer your question and how we could engage other youths to do that, we could start with what even something that we did today, community cleanups and zero waste initiatives.
So funny thing is, I did have the same idea as Shadrach did, and I think Safina, if I'm not wrong, but I wasn't there physically to kind of um, engage my fellow youth to do a small cleanup, focus on the areas on how waste is affecting climate change and water because it's a focal point for the Water I foundation as well.
But because of delays and delays in responses, planning and logistics, it wasn't able to work.
But as it was also something I'm quite passionate in, I joined Shadrack today.
And it was also a very wholesome experience to see him at work.
He takes on this whole leadership role, and you can see him in his element, directing the community and guiding the children and everyone else that he's working with.
So that is something that I really was inspired by with him and I believe things like that could be more expedited because, yes, as youth, we could say, um, We might have solutions to problems, but we do not have, let me say, a practical way on how to act on them.
People like Shadraq could come in the question and he could provide insight and leadership on, okay, you want us to do a cleanup? How do we plan the cleanup? How long is it going to take? Who are we involving? Is it going to be in relation to climate change? Is it going to be in relation to water? Is it going to be in the mement of both? I think that is really important.
Um, providing, let me say, spaces where youth could practically see the issue on water sanitation, climate change, and giving them the practical ways to either slowly or grandiose, make the change.
And then I really do think on my previous point about changing a mindset shift and perspective on how climate change is viewed, especially in the introduction of the whole theory in Canon schools or in Africa, we could let me say, build more trust or more support in high schools and university clubs and initiatives because I really do think that's one of the source or one of the areas where we have a mindset shift and where the problem comes from.
Because if we are not taught to see that climate change is an area we could provide solutions from our own selves, from our own local communities, then we would just cower in fear and just expect a big old company to come and assist us.
Whereas we need to be reminded often that we do have the power in our own hands and we do have the capacity to do things either in slow small ways because as I said, Shadraq is doing the same thing and he is results.
I do think those two could be something that would really work as much as we very powerful way of framing it, Tamara, that these problems that we see that seem external and far away from us and our own control, but being able to shift our mindsets to know that we have power to do concrete things at home in our own communities and that by working together, for example, you and Shadrach working together in new learning and working together to animate your own communities, that this is where you're starting to see that action and trying to expand that to also include high schools and other youth into these really hands on initiatives, such a great example, Tamara, of what you're doing in your own community and really thank you for being here today.
I'm going to move to Erin now.
Good morning, Erin.
Erin is from the mustard seed in Canada.
Erin, what can you tell us about what you're seeing in the work that you're doing and how it's able to be more inclusive? Do you have a concrete example of some of the ways that you're removing barriers or working with youth in your community? Thanks, Linda.
Yes, I appreciate this.
I'm Erin here with the Mustard Seed in Victoria and so I come from a North American experience and that will impact my perspective, of course, but I will speak from my heart and to my experiences.
My experiences have focused on food security and poverty reduction work.
And I remember my time on the front lines of a deeply stigmatized and challenged neighborhood going through a lot of poverty.
And while I can't speak for that community's experiences, I can share what I learned and what I heard there.
And I heard time and time again how incredibly frustrating it was to be so immediately impacted by the decisions of people who had never met them.
And the same decision makers who had actively worked to push struggling people out of sight, yet the members of those communities they continued to gather and they continued to support each other when it felt like maybe no one else would or the challenges were so far above them that they were out of reach to mirror what's been said so far as well.
But I remember I met this inspirational man and he had this resilient and creative spirit.
He lived in that community alongside the others who were relying on limited resources, limited food and facilities.
But he had a passion for nutrition, and he understood the local resources.
He knew where the community kitchens were located, where the free food markets were held.
And so he designed this nutrition workshop around their daily challenges because he knew their daily challenges.
He had lived them.
And it just reinforced for me that people in their own communities are the ones that have the intimate knowledge needed to design solutions that will realistically work for them.
Um, now that I'm working with the mustard seed in Victoria, I see this here as well.
Um.
You know, we have a food system here where thousands of pounds of food are being discarded as unsellable, and at the same time, people in this community are struggling to afford groceries.
So the mustard seed saw an opportunity to step in and now they operate a large scale food rescue program.
I think the greatest strength of the program in my eyes is that the rescued food is shared among a huge network of 80 local organizations, and the mustard seed doesn't tell those organizations how the food should be used or dictate that their programming.
We just trust that each of those 80 community groups has already built a great food program designed for their unique community.
So the food rescue program is scalable, it is reproducible.
They diverted more than 3 million pounds of food from the landfill in a single year.
And on the surface, it's a great waste management success story, which they should be very proud of.
But what I learned also is that food waste is not just a waste problem and that, you know, it is a systems problem.
So, At the same time, we have to ask why is so much waste being generated in the first place? Food rescue is a great example of how redistributing surplus food, it can and does redirect food from the landfill and back to communities.
It makes an important impact and it is an action that we can take right now in this time that's being taken that can be taken in other places as well.
But I think it's important to also reflect that effective action can't stop there because lasting climate action also requires us to look upstream, We can't keep asking communities to adapt to harms created by industrial systems while allowing those systems to continue unchanged.
So I think meaningful inclusion means supporting the communities not just as recipients of policy, but as leaders and innovators of it in the actions that they're taking already in their own communities and valuing those local solutions and respecting the place based knowledge and giving communities the resources that they need to sustain those solutions that they've already designed for themselves because they know their communities best.
So I think policy really has to just catch up and offer resources to what the communities have already been asking for and what they're already doing in their homes.
That's really amazing, Erin.
Thank you so much for grounding us in the reality that communities do really understand what their needs are and also what solutions that they can, um, implement to address those things.
I want to move us to another question and Shadraq, I think we'll come back to you.
Whose knowledge counts? How do we recognize and support indigenous and local knowledge in developing solutions beyond at the local scale, within this global scale.
So do you have an example of how you've seen meaningful participation and what do we think that governments and international agencies could do differently to ensure that no one gets left behind in these conversations and also in influencing the outcomes? Okay.
Thank you so much for that question.
Now, let me start with, whose knowledge counts? Everyone's knowledge counts.
We believe that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to be able to do something on the climate change.
And last time, I also talked about the inclusivity for people living with disabilities.
They can also do something along that area.
Now, what can governments and organizations do differently? One, when most of the time, a lot of people are investing a lot of money in mega summits, you see, which is mostly attended by the CEOs, the ambassadors and all that.
I'd love in as much as we're doing that, but we need to, like, they should now reach people directly into the communities because inside the communities is where we are getting the real information, and that is where the real work should be done.
You see, not in some expensive or in some summits.
Example, when we came to Zero West Forum, for example, when we are now working towards the CP 31, what can we do different Can we start doing local activities as we gear up towards the Cop 31? Let's have these small events like the ones we did today.
Let's do small build up activities as we work towards the Cop 31 so that when we meet there, then we have tangible things that we can say, right? This is what we are this is the goal that we are heading towards.
But we've been able to do this within our own localities.
You see, that way, it will have a lot of impact rather than just setting up a giant conference, people coming from all over the world, talking because I think it's now the time to start putting action into place instead of every time meeting and talking about ideas.
Let's see what we can do right now.
Let's have our local activities, and this is something that if every government can do, because I'm sure that at the CP one, we will have a delegates that are representing our government, of course.
But what is our government doing down here to make sure that everything is working.
They don't even care.
They don't even know what is happening.
So it's high time we start doing these things.
We need to start working.
Let's get down.
And I love it the way Shed visited us and he saw the real problem.
You see? Most of the time we are working with people that are only buying ideas and people that are imagining things.
But the moment we will be able now to bring resources down to the ground, down to the people, and have everything done, that is the beginning of our solution.
So that's it for now.
That is a really important note for us is that leadership who is doing a lot of the conversations and the policy making at these global summits may not know exactly what their own communities are doing to address the solutions.
Also, what I'm hearing is there is the lack of support in their own countries for actions that are directly addressing climate change impacts.
Thank you for that, Shadrach.
Tamara, do you have any advice or insights for us about what we might do to address climate change and be able to insert these solutions and have influence at these global processes as we move towards CP? Yes.
So for the tardiness.
My internet was a bit delayed.
Do you mind just repeating the question one more time? Sure.
Have you seen examples that Shad Rat talks about where youth have been engaged in climate change and have had the ability to influence and participate in a way that is moving forward the global conversation.
So I know you were at the Zero Waste Forum in Istanbul, for example.
Is there ways that we can really create the ability for youth to participate in these conversations in a better way or have more influence in the outcomes of these forums and conferences and global processes? Um, I could think of two ways.
One is already, let me say, actively going on as most people say, creating awareness.
I do think right now in the age of the Internet and, you know, even right now, we're globally connected, we're using virtual systems to be able to continue conversations.
So with the youth and people in different parts of the world experiencing climate change in their own, um, subjective, let me say, challenges and processes.
We could use social media as a way of getting the word out there that we do understand and we do, let me say, comprehend that there are climate change issues in different parts of the world, in different parts of the countries, and this is the information that we are moving in with right now.
And then maybe something else we could try and incorporate is let me say someone from Nairobi is not experiencing climate change the same way you are experiencing it.
So putting it down into how the change, the issues, the challenges are subjectively affecting us down to the local communities because one way I could think of right now, even in Kenya and in something Sandra has said, let me say climate change, drought, and lack of enough water and sanitation, women and girls are being affected because maybe some of them are going to be taken out of school early and sold in the whole early marriage thing so that the family gets enough money to sustain lives.
So understanding how each person in each geographical terrain is being impacted by the negative issues of climate change and then building conversations and actual practical solutions on how that can be solved from their perspective, and then now including more global, um, So.
Yeah.
Thank you, Tamara.
I think it's been such an incredible opportunity for all of our youth centered organizations from across this world to to come together, we had the opportunity, many of us in Istanbul Zero Waste Conference, to come together, but we've stayed connected.
We have developed through WhatsApp and other technologies, the ability to share what we're doing, to bring forward our ideas, and then also start to formulate ways that we can participate.
This is being an exact example of what you're talking about, how we're learning from each other and building solutions that are addressing the realities in our own communities that may be different across the globe.
So thank you for that.
I think these are great observations.
Erin, I'm going to come over to you, and I'm wondering if you could focus a little bit on what different resources, relationships, or decision making power do you feel that young people may need to move from participation into more leadership positions as we are trying to increase the influence that youth have, what are the things that can support them to do this, ensure that, again, no one is left behind in this process? Yeah, thanks, Linda.
I think realistically it all ties back to the way that we're educating youth and involving them in the solutions that we're working towards now so that they develop the skills needed to move in a systems thinking perspective.
So understanding what circularity really means within a system.
And there's discussions of moving or hopes of moving away from a linear model to a circular model.
But, you know, in the current education system that I experienced, um, environmental impacts are really considered an externality or something as an afterthought.
And so really being able to understand how resources tie together in a way that closes the loop, I think is a huge skill that's going to be so important, especially in local geographies, because each geography is different, as we've mentioned, you know, different landscapes can produce different food with different resources and need different inputs and create different outputs.
So I think just really educating youth with the skills needed to operate from that system's perspective and really the way that They're educated on understanding how to utilize finite resources in a smarter way in a circular way is really going to be a path forward towards ensuring that youth are equipped with the skills they need to bring on a future that is sustainable for everyone, for themselves, for further generations.
After them.
And the education system is, you know, adjusting as we go.
There are some community educations that are being done specifically by local organizations, and that's making a big impact as well.
So I think just continuing the work to make sure that youth are included in the conversation and even all of the great work that Shadrack and them are doing with childhood education, and there is so much happening here as well that brings me hope You know, we have other organizations here that are doing childhood education in schools with community gardens and how to grow food and really just starting from a young place about how to create a system that's a little bit more localized that allows us to rely on ourselves around food production, but also around waste management and around economy and how are we kind of bringing things closer to home in a way that we can rely more on local systems and sort of decentralize those industrial processes and Yeah, so I think education is definitely the starting point and just continuing to make sure that whatever work that we're doing, whatever projects that we're involved in that we're consistently, actively including children of all ages in that so that it's just a way of life moving forward.
I love that a way of life.
We make inclusion the way that we are and the way that we work together.
I love what you're saying about education and how it's happening in generally across the globe, we have institutions that are set up to provide education and yet there is a gap in the way that this education is setting us up for the future in the way of thinking about the world that we live and that being able to put more emphasis on circularity and circular food systems in your case, it would be looking at a how in local context, we can create systems where waste is diminished and becomes a resource instead of, for example, going to, in Canada, we have landfills.
I love what you're saying about also that through community organizations and other ways of experiencing and learning through including young people that we have the ability to bring more learning and education that will build that leadership and those mindsets that are needed as we move forward.
Hello, Doug.
I see you have hopped back into our session and we've also lost Shadrach and Tamara.
I'm wondering Shadrach and tomorrow here.
They're just when they turn their camera off.
Oh, I see.
Oh, good.
Okay.
So I think we have time for one more short question.
That's why I wanted to come in.
Unfortunately Lennon is dealing with a forest fire.
Near his home and sent really horrific shots.
He will send a video later on, he'll send around to people, but he can't really transmit from where he is.
But I and we were also unable to have Faith speak in session one.
But George, just to make this all really confusing, has agreed to maybe come in and give a few final words and some of the work he's doing.
I put, George, you're going to have to unmute yourself or I can't put you on the stage.
But can George be the final? Yeah, that would be great.
Good.
George, you need to unmute yourself.
If you can't.
There you go.
George, you're unmuted.
There we go.
George, are you there? I've been having huge issues.
We can't hear you, George, unless I can't hear you.
That doesn't mean no one else can.
Well, as much as we love technology to bring us together, we're all still struggling with the perfect perfect connection, but it makes us appreciate that we are talking across thousands and thousands of miles and this is such a powerful forum, and it's patience to deal with this.
Is George B going to be able to come in? I'm messaging him so he's the ticks are not double ticks.
So I would suggest you move to close, and if George comes in for 1 minute, we'll have him on, but other than that, I'm not sure.
So you.
Over to you.
Yes.
Thank you.
We've heard lots of themes today.
As we move towards CP 31, it's really important to look at this question, how do we ensure that everybody is One, not only represented, like it moves beyond.
I think that's what we've heard today.
It's beyond representation.
It's about how we are able to engage folks where they are, to look at education and spaces and community action that will allow us to tackle climate change, not from this abstract, far away, we have no control, we are just passive citizens, that we have the opportunity to do things right here right now at home, but that this needs support.
Also, leaving no one behind means recognizing that communities experienced climate change differently, with that, they hold the knowledge of relationships and solutions.
We're seeing that in what Shadrack is doing, what Aaron was talking about and Tamara, um, that local organizations are already organizing and connecting and responding and building solutions, and whether that is as Lenin's doing responding to fires or ARN strengthening food systems and working with children to understand about how to look at the circular economies in their own communities through the upcycling work and, um, And I think that we also heard from Shadrach that these local actions need to be visible and connected.
And in this age, we have the extraordinary ability, Tamara talked about this to connect ourselves across the world and share what is happening in places like Kenya and Canada and look at both our differences but our common challenges.
So I think it's really important to know who is being invited to the global table, and also, are we listening to what's already happening to communities? Are the decision makers close enough to these communities to understand it? Are they recognizing that young people in communities are They are the engines of change.
They are the actors that are making things happen to move things into this new era that we want to see.
And so, are they close enough to understand it? Are they given the resources that they need? Do they have entryways into decision making so that they can lead? So if we can build, learn, and act locally, and connect those efforts globally and bring that evidence and experience to CP 31, then we're not simply talking about it.
We're not talking about leaving anyone behind.
We are beginning to show what it looks like in practice.
So I am, I see George.
George, are you with us? Yes.
I am.
Can you hear me? We can hear you.
So you're coming in right at me.
I'm so sorry.
That's okay.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry about that.
I'm not sure what happened with the connection, but I'm excited and I'm happy to see you all.
I I was just saying that sorry, I joined late.
It's because we were hosting the international Youth Day celebrations here in Kenya.
And this was organized by different UN agencies that are based here in partnership with local community groups such as our organization, the Motangu Initiative.
And again, the theme is being different context, same aspirations.
You know, the event brought together over 200 young people from different parts of the city and innovators also who are showcasing some of their products.
And Faith was there as an innovator, also showcasing part of the up cyclers work that we are doing here in Madare.
And I think that's one of the reasons why she also had a challenge joining the call.
But otherwise, we also have another event tomorrow here in Madare with the UN Habitat Youth team, where we will now be more or less localizing the discussions that are going on around the world, bringing young people from this community together.
We are facing we are one year to the general elections.
So there are many, many challenges that, you know, are being anticipated and especially around insecurity, which also touch on young people.
And so we want to look at how we can, you know, create bridge between our local youth and the police who are the law enforcers, just to make sure that, you know, the unity starts preparing itself for the elections, which also based of judging the previous election cycles, they can tend to be violent and at times destabilize the community.
So we want to prevent that from happening.
And so the preparations will start tomorrow.
And also as part of the International Youth Day celebrations.
And this is in addition to the work that we are doing on the environment front of the cleaning our rivers and also making sure that we also have green spaces along the river riparian zones.
So briefly, not to keep you for long.
I know you have been here for some time, but I appreciate the opportunity to also just pop in, say hi, and let you all know that we are following and we are together in this.
Thank you so much and back to you over, Ana.
Thank you so much, George, Will.
I know that we need to sign off here, but I want to thank all of our speakers today.
Thank you so much, Shadrach, Tamara, Erin, and George.
I really think the resounding message that I heard is that that youth are engaged directly in their own communities.
Today on International Youth Day, there is a wave of youth organizations and youth centered activities happening across the globe to show and demonstrate what we are doing, youth coming together to have conversations, spaces being held for these conversations and those direct actions.
These are the stories that we need to take to CP 31.
These are the stories that inspire us, keep us connected, and keep us hopeful for working together and making a difference in this world that we so much love and want to leave better for our children and our next generation.
So, Doug, I'm going to turn it back to you.
I've so enjoyed the conversation today and being here, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of the different celebrations and conversations, deep, difficult, challenging, and yet inspirational conversations that go on on International Youth Day across the globe.
Doug back to you.
Well, Doug is frozen.
Thanks so much, everybody.
We'll sign off now and we'll see you all across the globe with all of your great actions today.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Goodbye from my daughter.
Goodbye.
Thank you so much.
Bye.
You can't do 36 degrees.
I think it is frying.
Can you hear me? I can hear you, Doug.
Okay.
Everyone's left now.
Have we stopped live? No, we aren't.
But what I'm going to do just because I want to have it is that we had a video from Si cat, who is going to introduce the the declaration.
So I'm going to play that right now and then we'll just because whatever.
He did the video and I was going to jump in, but then my computer crashed.
We're going to quickly listen to S Kat as he's coming on, and I also don't see Miro stalking us.
So as long as that's the case, we're good.
But thank you, everyone who's still around.
It was amazing.
It was really great.
B thanks, Linda, for all your moderating.
I think it was really helpful and I still see Stephen from the first session, so great and Shadrach, and Tamara and George and everyone.
So let me...
Okay.
This is from around the world today as we celebrate International Youth Day 2026 and continue an important conversation on the road to cop 31, youth leading Zero Waste and climate action.
I'm going to start that again because that was really bad.
Let's try one more time.
This is Skat who's also a host of this event and is a um is one of the leaders for the Zero Waste Form Youth Network and he's going to give the closing remarks for this whole session.
Thanks to Shaikh on this.
Unfortunately, it's almost two in the morning or one in the morning in Bangladesh, so he didn't stay up.
Here we go.
Okay.
Let's see.
Man, it's still not going.
One more time.
Okay.
What we will do is we will repost Shia video as well as I received a video from Lenin on the work he has done and work he's currently doing in Otvalo as they're dealing with currently an emergency.
The forest fire that's in the volcano.
Anyways, I just wanted to thank everyone.
S Kat will come back in on a video that we will post with this whole video when we download it.
And that will be the kind of the formal launch of the declaration, which has been launched a number of times, but this will be the one on the UN platform.
And we will also show Lenin's video at that time too.
So again, thanks everyone.
It's been great.
Thanks for putting up with any of the technical stuff we had going on, and I'm going to buy a new computer.
Okay.
Thank you very much, Ciao-ciao.