Social Issues Concern Youth
By
Deborah Senior, Co-ordinator Youth Week '97, Youth Action Network,
Canada
Conservation ... conserving what? Panda bears? Am I expected to be
a tree hugger? If so, I've got more pressing problems at hand.
What are the real issues involved in this type of forum, and how
do they directly affect me, where I am and where I live? These are
the questions that the youth I work with ask.
As the Coordinator of Youth Week '97, a project of the Youth
Action Network in Canada, my mandate includes encouraging a more
concentrated effort to ensure a youth prescence in the
decision-making process on environmental issues.
For too long, many groups, not just the young, have been excluded
from `environmental' discussions, because of the lack of
connection between their socio-economic status, and its relation
to their environment.
Those of us are young and who live in low-income housing are
perhaps a little more concerned with food, clothing shelter and
health related issues, than saving the Panda bears (even though
this is a worth-while cause).
Environmentalists should portray how one's environment is directly
related to the social issue in young people's lives, we think. The
western environmental movement must lose its upper-middle class
packaging in order to effectively connect social and conservation
issues.
Key linkages must be established between marginalised groups and
communities, to provide the tools to get involved to safeguard
their surroundings.
The IUCN objective of guiding the development of human communities
towards ways of life that are sustainable through grassroots
projects is a step in this direction.
Another hindrance to achieving results in environmental action
identified by youth is how power structures and power
relationships continue to plague the environmental movement.
The youth journalists and advocates represented here recognize the
importance of exposing the social dimensions of environmental
issues such as those raised and others that relate to health and
environmental racism.