Leading on Climate One out of three Ashoka Young Changemakers worldwide works on climate. Selected with Ashoka rigor, these teens have “had a dream, built a team, and changed their world”. The stories of two climate AYCers, India’s Garvita and Brazil’s Rhenan, follow. The AYCers’ initiatives work. But their impacts are far bigger – for the environment and for a world where everyone can give and therefore is welcome. They persuade millions to care and thousands to join or, better, to create their own new dreams and teams. Each of which then becomes a new multiplier. The climate AYCers and Fellows lead Ashoka’s special climate imagining and testing group. Morover, young people who know they can change the world at 15 are very likely to be the next-generation leaders for the environment and an everyone-canbe-a-giver world.
The greatest barrier to climate action now probably is the paralyzing “us versus them” politics that has swept so swiftly across the continents. This is rooted in the fact that millions cannot play in today’s everything-changing, everything-connected new reality. Those who can are doing brilliantly. But these people are being crushed. They need to blame someone. Hence the demagogues. The only answer is to ensure that everyone has the ability to give, to be powerful, i.e., in today’s reality, to be a changemaker. The AYCers are critical here. They are the goal-defining role models. They are working out the new patterns daily. They recruit. No one can convey the new definition of what success in growing up now is better, let alone with such emotional impact. Who could possibly lead youth communities as effectively?