YouthCaN

YouthCaN is a participatory, partnership-based initiative that puts youth at the centre of environmental communication, education, and action. Every year, YouthCaN collaborates with organisations around the world to put together a conference (held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, NY, USA) at which youth exchange their ideas, findings, and knowledge about the environment. Entirely designed and presented by youth, the workshops and activities involve students from local schools who interact with other students and educators around the world through videoconferencing technology. In this way, participants from a variety of backgrounds and contexts - hailing from elsewhere in the United States as well as from China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Slovakia, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and many more countries - are able to present and take part in educational workshops and activities.

The use of telecommunications to expand the reach of face-to-face conferences is complemented by links to many other activities taking place in YouthCaN schools and communities around the world. YouthCaN encourages young people around the world to take action to sustain their local environments; YouthCaN projects are a series of monthly hikes, global reports, activities, and collaborations that students create to help preserve and explore their environment (e.g., through efforts such as the Aberdare Youth Environment Project in which a few British students are trying to revitalise industrial land). Information and communication technology (ICT) is, again, used as a tool to share information about these on-the-ground actions; interactive forums and a dedicated page on the YouthCan website are the key means of communication.