By Alexa Boghosian

The summer of my freshman year of high school, I volunteered at the California Science Center “Cool Globes” exhibit.  My job was to provide information and tours to elementary school students who were on field trips to the exhibit. However, I quickly began to notice that the majority of the kids who passed through the exhibit had very little environmental literacy.  Therefore, I began a program called The GreenTeens to begin to fulfill my community’s needs.

The GreenTeens provide environmental education for elementary school students in Los Angeles schools. Through a curriculum created and taught by students for students, the GreenTeens promote environmental literacy, inspire students to take action, make behavioral changes, and become green leaders in their communities. Additionally, GreenTeens work with schools to initiate school-wide environmental campaigns relevant to each school community’s needs.  Watch us in action in this video: The GreenTeens at work

Just last spring, The GreenTeens won a grant of $2,500 from the Alliance for Climate Education to fund the project, making the program available to schools for free.  Now, the GreenTeens are in action!  We are currently visiting 3rd Street School and will start the program next week at Vine Street Elementary!

Already, the effect we are having on these kids is visible. The other day, for example, a girl who was participating in the program told me about how she and her mom went to the grocery store. As the mom was reaching for plastic bags, the girl stopped her and informed her that they could take the groceries home in the canvas bag she had made that day during the GreenTeens program! Not only are we affecting how these kids think, but they also affect their families, and ultimately, their communities, in one big multiplier effect.

One of the GreenTeens’ major goals is to expand the volunteer aspect of the program to other high schools to not only increase environmental literacy across multiple communities, but also to empower teens to take action by providing leadership opportunities for them within the green movement.

We provide a detailed curriculum, set-up steps, timelines, and lots of advice to each branch!

If you are interested in starting a GreenTeens branch at your own school, please
email volunteer@thegreenteens.org to request more information or request a Branch Application.

Honestly, anything is possible with effort.  You can impact people, you can impact the world, and it starts by raising your voice and taking action.

Join the GreenTeens, raise your voice, and help your community raise theirs!

Alexa Boghosian
Founder/President of The GreenTeens

Since June 2010, Inconvenient Youth Indonesia has tried their best to spread the news about the role of younger generations in fighting climate change. On the 26^th of September 2010, we were lucky to work with an NGO called CISV (Children’s International Summer Village). The focus of their organization is to promote peace and friendship all over the world. Both of us are worked together in making an event called “Peace One Day: Greenade the Concrete” to celebrate the “International Peace Day” on 21^st September 2010. The main focus of the event was to understand that peace can be reached by realizing the importance in protecting environment.

During the preparation of event, we were confused on what type of the participants would like. However, by adopting the idea of “greener environment” we came up with 7 different games. Recycling used paper, making art work from used water bottle, and making paper bag from used newspaper are just some of the activities that the participants enjoyed during the event.

The games were designed to not only entertained, but also emphasize on the awareness of the utilization of waste materials. For example, the committee decided to use a used newspaper instead of new paper to create a poster that had a theme of “green issues”. Also, plastic water bottles were turned into unique artwork with each participant using their own creativity. They were challenged to create an installation that reflected the idea of being green.

In the end of the day, everyone who joined the event got the best of both worlds. They didn’t just come home with sweat from hard work, but with a whole new knowledge. We at Inconvenient Youth Indonesia believe that there is so much that can be done to promote the message of climate change among our own community. The presentation could be one of the main medium; however we realized that this can be an alternate way to achieve the goal. In the near future, the CISV is willing to let us join their event in March/April 2011 to assist them in making a bio-pore project.

- Hamzah Ramadhan, IY Advisory Board and TCP Presenter

On the 25^th September 2010, Inconvenient Youth members Adeline, Rama, and Maira got a chance to join the TCP Indonesia event called Greenfest 2010. Inconvenient Youth was lucky to have a slot during their training session in the city of Bandung, and gave a presentation to the 250 person audience made up of different university students from around the area.

It was really scary at first since we never expected to have so many attendees to see our presentation. The audience mostly came from graduate students and the professor community. Our main concern was that they would ignore our presentation because our points might not be impressive.

Our presentation was scheduled around 3:30 in the afternoon. Gracefully we went to the stages, thinking of this as a challenge of being a young presenter. As it turned out, much of the audience were really putting their full attention on our presentation. At least 3 participants are eager to ask questions on our experience and inspiration on doing this type of activism.

We believed that the key to the presentation was using our real life examples. Therefore, the audience felt more personal with the ideas that are presented. For example, Maira’s said that, “…climate change is connected to poverty and other social issue…” which indicated her concern by knowing the effect of climate change. While Rama’s said, “…while many others think that climate change is not an important causes to be fighting for, I want to be the pioneer in this school that thinks that this important”. Not to mention Adeline, that stated “…I’ve been involved in this issue since 4 years ago. I want to keep doing this.”

The approximately 250 people that attended the event now realize the role of teenagers in fighting climate change. We didn’t offer solutions for the next 10 years, instead we suggested simple actions such as recycling or riding a bicycle can make a great impact. It was a challenging presentation for us, but we did well and left with more confidence. It was a great day for all of us who joined the event.

- Hamzah Ramadhan, IY Advisory Board and TCP Presenter

October 10th, 2010 – 10/10/10 – is going to be one of the biggest days of environmental activism ever. 350 is organizing their Global Work Party, and it’s going to be HUGE. 350 is an organization founded and led by climate activist extraordinaire Bill McKibben. 350 refers to parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere; the number that scientists agree we must get below if we want to avoid the worst affects of climate change. Their mission is to build an international movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis. Watch this 90 second VIDEO to learn more about them.

In October of 2009, 350 organized 5,200 simultaneous rallies in 181 countries to show our world leaders that they need to act on climate change. Unfortunately, our leaders are moving too slowly. So, 350 is ready to do it again, bigger than ever.

On 10/10/10 people in over 150 countries will gather to do work in their community that helps deal with climate change. The Global Work Party will prove to our political leaders that the world cares about climate change and that we can solve it. Together, we will make our voices heard. Read this letter from Bill McKibben to learn all the details and then FIND A WORK PARTY NEAR YOU!

- Grant