Centre for Sustainability Leadership, Victoria

Youth Take the Lead on Sustainability

$30,000 to Future Sustainability Leaders

www.csl.org.au

Meeting Larissa Brown, it quickly becomes apparent that this young woman is no stereotypical Gen Y’er. Larissa has already achieved what would take most people a couple of lifetimes. She has travelled the world, meeting and interviewing 100 of the world’s great sustainability leaders across 20 countries, won a British Council award for communicating climate change, is a member of the Environment Minister’s Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation, worked as a research scientist at the Australian National University studying the extinction event of Australia’s mega-fauna, helped save a forest by creating an ecotourism lodge in Costa Rica and rehabilitated endangered primates and big cats in Bolivia. Not bad for someone still in their twenties. And yet none of these is the most impressive of her achievements.

Larissa Brown had a seemingly simple thought. If we can’t get people in positions of power to care, then we need to put people who care into positions of power. From this premise the Centre for Sustainability Leadership (CSL) was born. The Centre builds on the recognition that there are thousands of young people across the globe who can imagine a different more sustainable world, but most do not know how to go about creating it.

The Centre for Sustainability Leadership Fellowship Program is CSL’s flagship training program. The Fellowship brings together 25 participants from Victoria and New South Wales in an intensive course designed to provide the skills required to develop creative solutions to the world’s current sustainability challenges.

The eight-month course is made up of weekly workshops, three retreats, mentoring and finishes with participants devising and implementing their own sustainability projects.

The George Alexander Foundation provides Fellowships to ensure that young people who may not be able to financially contribute to the program can still participate. Three Fellows were selected in 2009:

Ciaran MacCormaic

Ciaran is currently completing a Master of Environment and Sustainability at Monash University. Ciaran worked in sustainability roles for Conservation Volunteers Australia, Earthwatch Institute and as a Corporate Social Responsibility Advisor for Sensis before heading off to work in Africa for WWF and Bail for Immigration Detainees (BiD) advocating ‘trade not aid’.

Ciaran is excited about the opportunities the course offers, particularly about building a network of friends who are also passionate about creating solutions for a carbon-constrained future and living more simply in our everyday lives.

Linh Do

Linh completed her secondary education in 2008 as the overall VCAA VCE Achiever and is currently studying Arts (International Politics, Environmental Studies and French) at the University of Melbourne. Professionally, she works as a public speaker. Linh is also the National Director of Change&Switch, a youth led organisation that aims to amalgamate environmental and social justice issues. She has been trained by Al Gore through The Climate Project. From the Fellowship, she hopes to gain valuable life-long skills through the weekly workshops, further develop both personally and professionally, and possibly have an ‘a-ha’ moment.

Ellen Sandell

Ellen Sandell is currently the Victorian Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) and runs AYCC’s national schools program. Ellen is the founder of the award-winning high school Leadership in Environmental Action Program (LEAP). She has represented Australian youth at two United Nations climate change conferences. In 2007, Ellen was the Environment Officer in The University of Melbourne Student Union, and was instrumental in getting the University to commit to carbon neutrality. In 2008, Ellen won the Pride of Australia Medal, a Telstra Environment Award and the British Council Emerging Leaders Award. She was also a finalist in the Australian of the Year Awards.

Ellen has a science and arts degree from The University of Melbourne. Along with her senior colleagues at the AYCC, Ellen also recently won the 2009 Environment Minister’s Young Environmentalist of the Year Award.

The George Alexander Foundation provides Fellowships to ensure that young people who may not be able to financially contribute to the program can still participate.