The Climate Centre supports young people everywhere who are engaging in critically important local and global climate action, as part of the Red Cross Red Crescent strategy on youth-led climate action.
The Climate Centre recognises the key role children and young people play in ensuring we do not suffer the consequences of a worsening climate. Filled with energy, youth across the world are ready to act, and on an unprecedented scale.
Millions of young people have expressed their concerns about climate change; and more than ever, they are listened to. Youth have drawn more public attention to climate change in months than than their elders have in the same number of years.
Our flagship programme, Y-Adapt, is broken down into seven curriculum sessions, all available to download from the links at right: Introduction, the Climate Change Challenge, Map the Hazard, See the System, Act to Adapt, Choose your challenge, Join the Y-Adapt community, and a specialist session, Experience the Environment. It helps young people understand climate change and take practical action to adapt to a changing climate in their community. There is also a special module for young people in our Climate Training Kit.
Our youth engagement, then, is essentially threefold: focusing on increasing awareness, engaging in practical action and enabling meaningful advocacy.
Helping young people help us adapt
Youth training in the Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands Red Cross Society conducted a successful pilot training session on climate action for young National Society staff and volunteers, facilitated by the Climate Centre’s Michaela Korodimou, seated third from right in the picture: “It was a wonderful week with a very inspiring group of volunteers, fusing Y-Adapt and creating a leadership and advocacy curriculum on climate for young people.” The SIRCS was rolling out the training in its branches in support of climate-related work.
Read moreStrategy
With the IFRC we launched the Red Cross Red Crescent strategy on youth-led climate action on 22 April, Earth Day, 2022, created by and for young people.
A series of international consultations, surveys, and virtual engagements were held, and the strategy in available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish.
We are now collecting stories of action from youth across the globe to monitor the implementation of this strategy. Want to be inspired? Take a look at the world map below (extract) and click the link to register and add your humanitarian initiative.
The Youth Advisory Group
The Climate Centre Youth Advisory Group on Climate works to expand the enthusiasm for youth-led climate action across the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, and advise on the implementation of its strategy for such action.
The group, which is being expanded in 2023, also supports regional contributions to the annual Red Cross Red Crescent climate and youth summit, promotes climate action through an online community, acts as focal point for the IFRC Youth Commission, and advises the Climate Centre’s own programme management team.
It comprises six Red Cross or Red Crescent staff or volunteers, aged 18 to 30, from each of the six IFRC regions. The founder members are (alphabetically from top left): Ana Gabriela, Adnan Khan, Doris Mwikali, Hayley Payne, Marc Tilley, Saad Uakkas.
Climate and Youth Summit
The IFRC fielded a large youth presence at the COP27 and (photo) COY17 (Conference of Youth) meetings in Egypt in 2022, and the second Red Cross Red Crescent youth climate summit heard all about their experience. The summit was also introduced to the new Climate Centre youth advisory group. (Watch this space for details on the 2023 summit to be held online on 11 November.)
2022 summit highlights
Y-Adapt training
This video, the first of a series of nine, will help you when preparing to facilitate Y-Adapt sessions.
Training video collection