Here we proudly introduce the youth groups and networks that are participating in the Youth Nature Futures project, in no particular order.
Zimbabwe Youth Biodiversity Network
The Zimbabwe Youth Biodiversity Network (ZYBN) envisions a world where people understand, value, and conserve the diversity of life on Earth. ZYBN works to connect, empower and support youth across Zimbabwe to take action on biodiversity and related issues. We do this through organizing workshops to capacitate young people, mobilizing youth across Zimbabwe to learn, grow and act together on the biodiversity crisis for a just and sustainable future and advocating for the participation and inclusion of young people in biodiversity policy and management processes.
Envirolove
The aim of the Envirolove Youth Project is to expose the local community youth in underresourced communities to educational and personal development opportunities that will address social, environment and economic issues through practical and innovative local solutions, as well as to support their development as active citizens.
Our objectives are to :
Build confidence in youth and cultivate a sense of hope for their community through positive interaction with their environment.
Empower youth through emotional and practical skills development: changing youth’s understanding and attitudes toward science, the outdoors, their communities, tertiary education, and careers.
Transform the lives of youth through mentorship: Endowing youth with increased academic skills, civic and community leadership, environmental stewardship, and employment opportunities.
Youth4MPAs
Youth4MPAs is a South African youth-led movement with the vision of generating youth voices that educate and create awareness about ocean health, protection, and sustainability while building youth capacity and relationships with global citizens. The Youth4MPAs vision is a sustainable future through the connection of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Currently, with a network of over 270 active members from various communities and backgrounds, they are advocating for increased ocean protection and promotion of MPAs in South Africa, and beyond. For 2021, they aim to grow their youth network across Africa, generating meaningful conversations about youth involvement in key decisions about the future of our ocean, including 30×30. To have your voice heard and to join the Y4MPAs movement click here.
Zimbabwe Workcamps Association
Zimbabwe Workcamps Association is a youth volunteer organization founded in October 1993. It is a non-political, non-sectarian, non-religious, voluntary organization. Its membership is open to anyone above the age of sixteen years irrespective of nationality, gender, race, religion, political view or educational qualification. Zimbabwe Workcamps Association aims to promote education and community development. Workcamps are proven developmental techniques that encourage local communities to do self-help projects, through the use of scarcely available resources, to raise their socio- economic, cultural and physical standards of living.
Community Forum
Community Forum (COFO) is a local non-profit organization that promotes household level permaculture, agroecology systems, improving the lives of women and girls, education, arts and sports, food security, health and nutrition, HIV/AIDS care and prevention in Chikwawa district, Malawi, through demostration, education, outreach and advocacy. It was incorporated in Malawi as a local not-for-profit organisation in 2018. COFO’s mission is to challenge socio-economic inequalities and assist vulnerable populations toward self-reliance. The Vision of COFO is to build a community where all citizens have the opportunity for a high quality of life, including but not limited to high standards of education, gender equality, health, and entrepreneurship.
Painting on Purpose
Art is a unique, universal language that bridges all social barriers and has the power and potential to shift perceptions, facilitate conversations, unite people around a common cause and most importantly – inspire action that creates a lasting change. This is the revelation that sparked the mission of Painting on Purpose.
We are human-driven reformers who passionately pioneer innovative, informative, and creative solutions to the world’s various challenges.
These come to life as sustainable and inclusive art projects in a multitude of communities in need across the globe.
For Progress Namibia
The For Progress Namibia Project was initially established to pioneer new indicators for measuring progress in Namibia. However, the project committee decided to take a multi-tiered approach to encourage Namibia onto a sustainable development path through environmental, social, and economic transformation. New indicators are developed for measuring Progress in Namibia with new discussion platforms around what matters to people in society. The use of GDP as the primary measure of progress has been proven to undermine the well-being of people in society. Perception indicators were developed and tested for measuring progress through surveys along with income areas in Namibia. The results are presented to the community through dialogue and engagement. The project is implementing an action plan and strategy based on a new narrative of what progress and good life would mean to the residents.
APROPE
APROPE (Association for the Development of Projects and Research) is a Mozambican initiative of national scope, with an indefinite duration and has its headquarters in Maputo Province, being able to establish delegations throughout the country.
It is an association of young people driven by the dream of living in a more participatory community and that constantly seeks to improve their condition of existence, through the creation of research and social intervention projects, particularly in the areas of Education, Health and the Environment.
APROPE has 20 members, all of them trained in various areas of knowledge and action. As education and environmental associations are our strengths, we established contacts with national and international entities through partners in projects in collaboration with governmental and non-governmental institutions, such as WaterAid, Soltrain, Cinesol-Africa, among others.
Vhembe Biosphere Youth Network
Vhembe Biosphere Reserve (VBR) is a UNESCO declared site because of its richness in biodiversity of plants and animal species. The Vhembe Biosphere Youth Network (VBYN) is a youth network which was formed under the VBR, and it focuses on creating opportunities for young people in terms of the Green Economy. We conduct community awareness for environmental conservation, environmental restoration, climate activism and pollution (air, water, land). We advocate for youth accelerating change by capacitating them with training to start and develop a business or conduct academic research activities. We work with local and international organizations to host and facilitate UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programmes. Amongst other successful collaborations, we have successfully worked with the South African Youth Biodiversity Network (SAYBN) to host capacity building workshops and consultation meetings for the zero draft of the Post2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Furthermore, we do gender mainstreaming where we work with girls from rural remote areas to empower them and distribute sanitary pads.
Music Inspires Foundation
Music Inspires Foundation was conceived under the premise that science and data can be presented in a simpler way to young people through optimizing low-cost communication mediums such as music, performance and radio to help connect with personal and collective drivers of action. Founded by social singer/songwriter and Queen’s Young Leaders award recipient Joseph Pupe in Zambia, Music Inspires Foundation uses creative and cultural approaches to engage communities and expose diverse audiences to climate change issues. This includes audiences that would have been unlikely to seek out information or attend events specific to climate change.
At Music Inspires Foundation, we are continually reminded of the essential power of young people’s potential and ability to create sustainable change and solutions at local level. We have developed new creative and cultural opportunities for more than 220 youth in underserved communities as a result of produced, programmed and curated work on environmental themes, and continue to succeed in partnering with a range of local, national, and international organizations including United Nations Zambia to amplify young people’s voices and ideas for sustainable change and development.
WILDOCEANS Ocean Stewards
Through its Ocean Stewards Initiative, WILDOCEANS aims to nurture a new generation of young minds that heed the call of the ocean and pursue career paths focused on marine science and conservation, contributing to the fast-emerging Blue Economy in South Africa. Students participate in various experiential learning platforms, including research cruises aboard the R.V. Angra Pequena and R.V. Phakisa, Science Communication Training, and the annual Science Session. The project is supported by Grindrod Bank and the Blue Fund and is being implemented in partnership with the African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme (ACEP), which is funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) as well as provision from the Blue Action Fund (BAF) project Oceans Alive (OA). By providing young marine science students with a formative experiential journey that gives them unique insights into marine conservation, it aims to inspire them to pursue careers in marine science and environmental management. The program also offers ongoing mentorship and support for future study opportunities, providing a channel for students to take further steps towards becoming professionals.
YouLead Initiative Project 90 by 2030
Project 90 by 2030 is an environmental social justice organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa. It works primarily on climate change, energy poverty, and the social injustices that intersect them. Our youth programme – the YouLead Initiative – aims to strengthen the leadership capacity of young leaders and decision-makers of the future.
WILDTRUST
The WILDTRUST mission is to inspire our teams to work to regenerate the inter-connectedness of all things, to create opportunities to empower and restore socio-ecological resilience and the balance between humankind and nature, for a just and healthy planet. The WILDTRUST pursues the realization of its vision of a thriving and resilient world, through two core programmes, its WILDLANDS and WILDOCEANS programmes, underwriting the sustainable development of the blue and green economy. Because biodiversity protection is inextricably linked to building resilience, all our projects contribute to both goals to a lesser or greater degree. Furthermore, we strive to include in all our projects some key cross-cutting elements that we believe add impact value and significantly amplify outcomes. These cross-cutting elements include community livelihood support, future leader and youth development, science and knowledge generation, and ocean awareness communication and campaigning.
AEFUM
Associação dos Estudantes Finalistas Universitários de Moçambique (Association of University Finalist Students of Mozambique) – AEFUM – is a non-profit organization founded by university students in Mozambique. Currently, AEFUM has more than seven thousand members, final-year and graduate students from all public and private learning institutions in Mozambique and the diaspora.
AEFUM advocates for professional integration of final-year and postgraduate students, especially women. Since its creation in 2006, AEFUM has implemented many programmes, such as the Holiday Developing the District Program (PFDD); Psychosocial Support Project for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (VOCs); Training Project on Mechanisms for Integrating the HIV and AIDS Component in Sectors and Programs; Excursion to Communities; Knowledge Centres Project; Environmental Protection Projects; and a Programme Fair.
South African Youth Biodiversity Network
The South African Youth Biodiversity Network is a national chapter of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network and a registered NPO in South Africa. It aims to (1) strengthen the contribution of South African Youth in the Convention on Biological Diversity, (2) manage an online platform where South African youth find opportunities related to biodiversity and (3) contribute to the implementation of the South African National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan by participating in grass root conservation projects.
Green Habitat Botswana
Green Habitat Botswana Society was formed in 2017 by a group of keen youth of Botswana who are passionate about biodiversity conservation. The Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) started as an idea that led to a couple activities being implemented by these young stars, these activities included litter picking, environmental education awareness talks and campaigns, and tree planting. With the success of these projects an NGO was officially registered on the 25th of October 2018 with the aim to expand environmental education and biodiversity conservation efforts nationally. Ever since the inception of these ideas, the NGO has been growing in addressing environmental issues
Vision: To actively contribute to the social and economic development of the communities in which we operate and to be an organization that continually responds to the changing social realities through the development and application of knowledge, towards the development of a sustainable society that promotes and protects biodiversity and the environment for the next 50 years.
Eswatini Youth Biodiversity Network
Eswatini Youth Biodiversity Network (EYBN) is a national chapter under the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN). GYBN is a network of individuals and youth organizations from around the world with the goal to prevent and halt the loss of biodiversity, as forms part of the international coordination platform for youth participation in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
EYBN serves as a national coordination platform for the youth to actively engage in biodiversity issues, connecting the CBD to the national and local level, and spreading GYBN’s vision and activities on the ground. EYBN aims to represent the voice of the Eswatini youth in biodiversity conservation issues. The objectives are to raising awareness among young people about the value of biodiversity, empowering young people to take leadership roles in biodiversity conservation initiatives, foster effective cooperative relationships with multi-stakeholders, advocate for youth inclusion and intergenerational equity in conservation policy-making processes, acknowledge the value of indigenous knowledge and promote information sharing, while also supporting the CBD.
This project was made possible thanks to the generous support of:
Youth Nature Futures 