YCL Turns 3: Celebrating our birthday in a time of COVID-19
As we take this month to mark YCL’s third birthday, co-founders Ana Gonzalez Guerrero and Dominique Souris share how we got here.
Three years ago in Waterloo, ON, two friends met up in a bar to reimagine youth engagement in climate policy (we’re nerds, we know). What emerged was an idea for an online hub to demystify the Paris Agreement - it was, spoiler alert, never implemented. Instead, it planted the seeds that would eventually become Youth Climate Lab.
Dom (left) and Ana (right) at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019.
This month, YCL turns 3. How did we get here? It’s hard to put our journey into words.
In 2017, we were both involved in a variety of climate work. Dom was studying global governance at the University of Waterloo, while volunteering on a number of international climate initiatives focused on youth participation in the UNFCCC negotiations. Ana was a recent grad, busy supporting the climate work of communities with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Despite our vastly different work, we were unified in our belief that young people kick ass, and should be provided with the space and resources to drive ambitious climate action at all levels, from their communities to the highest tables of decision-making.
And to tell you the truth, we felt f*ed. And by that, we mean frustrated. Everywhere we went, we met incredible young people with big ideas to transform our world, but who lacked the support, resources and access needed to bring their efforts to scale. We wanted to find new ways to strengthen and support a generation of leaders to shake things up.
YCL’s first team retreat in April 2018.
Fast forward to today, Youth Climate Lab is now a global team of 6 full-time staff and 24 Associates in 6 countries. We have spent the last three years designing, piloting and scaling projects that support young people around the globe to spark and scale transformative ideas for a more just, climate-resilient world. And we’re so proud of the work we’ve done.
We’ve trained youth on climate policy in Nunavut to Seychelles, facilitated 10+ social innovation Labs, and supported youth-led climate businesses in over 19 countries in the Global South. We’ve also advocated the role of youth as partners for climate action to high level audiences at the United Nations, G7 Environment Ministers and Green Climate Fund. And, we’ve done most of this on a shoestring budget, with more all-nighters and early mornings than we can count (not to mention with Ana juggling a day job during the first two years).
We couldn’t have done any of this without our incredible partners around the globe. We are proud to have collaborated with over 30+ organizations, including youth-led organizations like Student Energy, the governments of Canada, Seychelles and Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, international organizations, such as the Global Green Growth Institute and funders, like the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, Lawson Foundation, among many others.
The Seychelles Support Team, YCL’s first ever project, in action at COP23 in Bonn, Germany in 2017.
It’s been a grueling but rewarding journey so far. And, we recognize this would be much more difficult for others. As non-Indigenous, white-passing young women from the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Nation (Ottawa, Canada) and from Tenochtitlan (Mexico City, Mexico), we recognize our undeniable privilege and our positionality in the work we do. For us both, the legacy of colonialism is strong and has benefited our families greatly. We recognize our role in addressing systemic inequalities through our work within YCL and in our individual actions.
In the midst of the global pandemic, we are taking this time to reflect and honestly assess the impact we’ve had and where we want to go. Much like climate change, Covid-19 is highlighting, and deepening, the inequalities within and between communities and countries. How will our society emerge from Covid-19? And how might we elevate youth voices in re-imagining the just recovery that needs to take form? As our friends at Sustain Us said: “we are not here to return to the status quo, but to transform this moment for a better world.”
We are excited by the possibilities of what can grow from crisis. We are also excited to share the insights and lessons we’ve learned over the last three years - the good, and the bad - and our plans for the next three years. And we want you to be a part of it.
Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram throughout the entire month of May as we celebrate YCL’s third birthday, and the impact to come.
Wishing you health and happiness in these challenging times,
Ana & Dom
YCL Co-Founders
Ana facilitates at a YCL event in Ottawa in March 2019.