Mobilizing Mindsets For Climate Action Among Young Activists
Fears about the severity of the climate emergency were crippling young people’s sense of agency to take action. Greenpeace Africa felt it was time to change the discussion and help young people find the strength to speak up.
Tags : Emotions, Feel.Think.Act., Agency, Climate Crisis | Country : South Africa, Kenya
The challenge
Surveys and conversations with Greenpeace volunteers in South Africa and Kenya showed that young people there were feeling fearful, anxious, and angry about the climate crisis. This was making them feel disempowered and hopeless. Having to deal with the Covid pandemic was only exacerbating the situation.
The aims
Build an effective training programme for volunteers to help students swap anxiety for agency and feel empowered to take action on climate change
Use the programme to train volunteers to become certified Anxiety to Agency classroom instructors
Start delivering virtual mindset-shifting classes to youth in Africa
The Solution
Mindworks’ insights
Key Mindset Factors: Emotions
Conversation is action: People’s fears about the climate crisis can be overcome by creating safe spaces and moments for them to talk about these emotions and providing them with pathways to handle despair, guilt, and anxiety.
Feel. Think. Act: Conversations that help shift mindsets away from despair and towards empowerment are based on a three-part framework: listen to participants’ feelings, guide them to reimagine a new world, and build individual and collective senses of action.
Working with Force of Nature, a youth non-profit that focuses on using education to crush eco-anxiety and empower young people, Mindworks designed a Train-the-Trainer programme that equipped volunteers with the tools to deliver virtual classes.
This involved listening to the thoughts of both trainers and students to inform the programme, using feedback from the trainers after they took the classes as students to tweak the content, and then finally solidifying their understanding of the “Feel. Think. Act” framework.
After holding classes with local high school students and peer volunteers, the trainers were able to certify as official Force of Nature Anxiety to Agency classroom teachers.
“This classroom gives you a sense of community and that there are many like yourself, feeling the same way you do.
“You are not alone.”
- Amrita, Greenpeace Africa volunteer, South Africa
Working with Force of Nature, a youth non-profit that focuses on using education to crush eco-anxiety and empower young people, Mindworks designed a Train-the-Trainer programme that equipped volunteers with the tools to deliver virtual classes.
This involved listening to the thoughts of both trainers and students to inform the programme, using feedback from the trainers after they took the classes as students to tweak the content, and then finally solidifying their understanding of the “Feel. Think. Act” framework. After holding classes with local high school students and peer volunteers, the trainers were able to certify as official Force of Nature Anxiety to Agency classroom teachers.
The impacts
“This classroom gives you a sense of community and that there are many like yourself, feeling the same way you do. You are not alone.” Amrita, Greenpeace Africa volunteer, South Africa
The future
Some 24 Greenpeace volunteers from Kenya and South Africa are now delivering virtual classrooms for youth, aged between 16 and 24, across the continent. They are helping them channel feelings of frustration, anger, and anxiety about the climate crisis and changing them into solutions.