We’re committed to supporting young people to take social action!
We’ve signed the Power of Youth Charter, part of the #iwill movement showing our public commitment to empower more children and young people to make a positive difference on conservation issues that affect their lives, their communities, and broader society.
The #iwill Movement is represented by over 1000 organisations from all different sectors across the UK who are supporting the #iwill Movement’s vision. We are now one of over 300 organisations that have signed the Power of Youth charter – publicly showing our commitment in a variety of ways to help make participation in social action the norm for young people under 25
As part of Volunteers’ Week and The Power of Youth Day 2024, we want to highlight the various actions young people take part in through our programmes at the zoo.
“We are thrilled that Chester Zoo have become the latest organisation to sign the Power of Youth charter, showing how businesses, funders and charities can work together to give young people real voice and real power. By signing the Power of Youth Charter and publicly committing to empowering young people like me to shape and lead change, Chester Zoo joins over 300 other organisations across the UK as part of the #iwill Movement. We encourage all organisations passionate about empowering young people to come forward on #PowerOfYouthDay to make your commitments, too.”
Sami Gichki, #iwill Ambassador and co-chair of the #iwill Movement Assembly
Duke of Edinburgh and Youth Volunteering
Volunteering is a great way for young people to become active citizens and explore their passion by participating within an organisation like the zoo. Volunteering can take young people on a journey of personal growth and skills development, and it’s a fantastic way for them to develop their leadership skills and meet new people.
We’ve been supporting young people through volunteering for many years, giving young people the chance to achieve their Duke of Edinburgh awards or volunteer in conservation education roles. We work with local organisations such as schools, youth clubs, health organisations and charities to support us in providing inclusive volunteering opportunities for a wide range of young people.
During their time volunteering journey, young people have the chance to learn from zoo professionals and young people from the Youth Board. Through training and masterclasses, some young people have also learned skills to create digital conservation education content such as podcasts, films, and photography. Our latest cohort of Duke of Edinburgh youth volunteers produced content about our new Himalayas area of the zoo including a podcast and pieces of photo journalism.
Have a listen to Sebastian and James’ podcast!
Youth Board and the Youth Symposium
Our Youth Board are an amazing group of young people aged 18-24 who volunteer their time to help us to stay relevant to young people, ensuring that young people have the opportunity to influence what we do.
“It allowed me the opportunity to learn about conservation and also to find ways to incorporate youth governance into the conservation field and make sure all young people feel like they have a voice, and they have representation.”
Lyndon Howson, Youth Board Member
As well as offering advice and feedback on our programmes for young people and the zoo as a whole from young people’s perspectives, the Youth Board help organise, co-create, and host our annual Youth Summit, an event to provide a platform for young people actively interested or participating in conservation action.
The annual event aims to bring together young people from across the conservation world to share their stories, network with peers and explore new opportunities. Based around core themes of Youth Conservation Action and Youth Governance, 2024 will be the fourth year the event has run, and to date with over 250 inspiring young people attending to date.
This year’s event takes place right before the international climate and biodiversity COPs and outputs from workshops and sessions in this year’s symposium will inform a statement calling on action from governments on behalf of young people.
Changemakers in conservation
As part of our Networks for Nature Project and ongoing digital changemakers project, we’ve been consulting with young people from the local area to understand their thoughts and feelings about environmental, sustainability and conservation issues. Listening to which ways they want to take social action whether that’s through developing green spaces, volunteering, campaigning, creating social media content and lots of other ideas.
It’s vital for us that we listen to young people and involve them in decision making about the projects and products we’re designing. Often using the motto, ‘made for young people by young people’ to ensure that the work we do has their ideas and experience at the heart of the projects we create.
We’ve created our first Youth Network that young people can sign up to and get more involved in projects, stories, webinars, and opportunities and get involved in conservation.
Supporting young people to take conservation action
Through our Westminster Foundation funded Greener Futures project, we’ve been able to appoint a specific Youth Development Co-ordinator role at the zoo. This means we can work even more young people to remove barriers to accessing nature and conversation and allow us to bring diverse young voices into the conservation sector.
We work with underrepresented young people on co-creation projects to support and enable them to take conservation action, tackle sustainable issues that matter to them and practically create wildlife and wellbeing spaces in their local communities. Working with local schools, colleges, and youth groups we are highlighting conservation and sustainable career pathways and provide opportunities to develop skills and experience for greener futures through our youth programmes.
Our Youth Network events, and tailored youth programmes bring together our diverse young communities to learn, develop and inspire each other to make positive change.
We also host Chester Schools Sustainability Network, which brings together Year 10 – Year 13 representatives from seven local high schools to discuss sustainability within their setting. When setting up the network, we spoke to headteachers to ensure that there was buy-in from senior leadership teams to ensure that the student voices will be heard, valued, and make a difference. This is part of the wider UK Schools Sustainability Network hosted by Global Action Plan, with representatives of Chester SSN taking part in national meetings for the network.
The Chester Schools Sustainability Network, along with other students across the North West will be participating in our annual School’s Takeover where young people take over our public programme to deliver conservation messages to our visitors. Each year we provide this platform for young people to be a voice for change – through doing this we hope to empower not only young people to advocate for conservation but also our visitors.
SIGN UP TO THE YOUTH NETWORK
If you’re aged 13 – 25, join the Chester Zoo Youth Network to get involved and keep up to date with the latest youth events and news!