Empowering Youth Voice In A Climate Crisis

‘Empowering Youth Voice In A Climate Crisis’ is a 60 minute Zoom conference for school students in Years 10 to 13.

This Zoom meeting is hosted by Andrew Petrie and James Butler of King Edward’s School Edgbaston, Founders of the Midlands Schools Eco-Network, and safeguarded by teachers from the UK Schools Eco-Network, in partnership with Footsteps – Faiths for a Low Carbon Future.

For the Zoom link, get permission from your parents and then use your school email address to contact James Butler on jb@kes.org.uk, ccing the teacher at your school in charge of your Eco or Sustainability group, or your form teacher so that they know you’re attending.  Only those students who have been emailed this link by jb@kes.org.uk will be allowed from the Waiting Room into the Zoom meeting.

We’ve invited three climate activists from the Midlands to help us understand how we can make our voices heard in the climate movement on a regional and national level:

Birmingham Councillor Lisa Trickett, Fay Holland from Friends of the Earth and Kamran Shezad, the Bahu Trust Sustainability lead.

Students will hear about how to accelerate change through established democratic channels, and how to get our collective youth voice heard ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in November.

Students will have the opportunity to pose questions, discuss the issues in breakout rooms, and hear recommendations on joining local and national climate groups.

Safeguarding: All attendees will be aged 14 to 18, and will have told their parents and teachers about the conference. Sign in to Zoom using only your first name or initials. Do not share your surname, school name or contact details during the Zoom. We will ask you to keep your camera on throughout the conference wherever possible.

Speaker profiles

Schools Eco-Network Code of Conduct and Safeguarding reminders:

1.     We respect others’ opinions and their opportunities to contribute.
2.     We keep ourselves and others safe.
3.     We all know the UK Schools Eco-Network Safeguarding Policy in addition to our own regional network’s and school’s safeguarding policies.
4.     We only use school email accounts to verify us as school pupils and staff, and to record emails. Staff use Bcc wherever possible for pupil email addresses. Pupils should Cc in a member of staff from their own school whenever contacting a member of staff at another school.
5.     We don’t share mobile contact details from staff to pupils or pupils to staff.
6.     We have four or more in a Zoom breakout room with a staff member of the network present where possible.
7.     We only have pupils in any Pupil-Only WhatsApp groups, only invited via school email.
8.     We understand that any interaction through social media outside of the organised Zoom calls is not the responsibility of any of the eco-networks.
9.     We report anything potentially unsafe to a teacher from our own school.

Guest speakers 

We would appreciate you agreeing to some standard safeguarding.

Don’t put any personal details in chat.

Do not approach pupils after a meeting directly without going via school staff.

Any email contact with pupils must Cc their teacher in.

Any presentations must be age-appropriate.