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Youth

Helping young people help us adapt

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 youth engagement, then, is essentially threefold: focusing on increasing awareness, engaging in practical action and enabling meaningful advocacy. 

Key documents and links

NEW: Register for the 2024 virtual Climate and YOUth Summit
Internships
Children’s climate cards
Water and youth campaign, exercises
Training videos

Y-Adapt:
Session plans for printing (Zip file)
Session plans for printing (French language) (Zip file)
Specialist session plans: Experience the environment
Specialist session plans: Water edition (Spanish, Arabic)

Y-Adapt

Our flagship youth programme, Y-Adapt, is broken down into seven curriculum sessions, all available to download from the links in the box above: 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. (See also the link to the training videos at the bottom of this page.)

(Left, Y-Adapt with young volunteers of the Guatemala Red Cross.)

2024 virtual Climate and YOUth Summit
Event

2024 virtual Climate and YOUth Summit

The fourth virtual Climate and YOUth Summit was held on 11 December 2024. Organized by the IFRC, the American and Norwegian Red Cross and the Climate Centre, in partnership with the Global Youth Mobilization initiative of the “Big Six” alliance, it focused on youth-led innovations, with real-time translation in Arabic, French and Spanish. Describing youth as “a remarkable force of resilience and action”, IFRC President Kate Forbes said in a video message to the summit that it was a reminder of the crucial role played by young people in mitigating climate change.

Read the news story

Strategy

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.

Youth action worldwide

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.

News story
Video

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