Young Adults Environmental Leadership Program YAELP
The Young Adults Environmental Leadership Program (YAELP) is the training and delivery arm of Sustainable Earth Solutions, Inc. The YAELP starts with a 2 day training conference with eight schools and organizations attend in attendance. The intent of this conference is to use creative thinking and leadership skills that are applied to the plans of action that teams create while attending the conference.
The teams are composed of five to six students along with a teacher/advisor. Participants from each school and organization come to the 2 day conference with an environmental challenge/problem they wish to address in the school or community.
The outcome of the conference is that each team has created an action plan they commit to implementing following the conference. Eight weeks after the conference, the teams present to a public audience the current state of their project. This sets the team up to receive a financial award of $500 for the continued implementation of their project.
The YAELP participating teams are paired up before the conference to help expose each team to persons of varying economic and ethnic backgrounds. Diversity training provided by the National Foundation for Just Communities (NFJC) through which participants will gain insight into ways to effectively collaborate across ethnic and economic boundaries.
Examples of past team projects have included
- "How might we start or improve the recycling in our school/community?";
- "How to get some working solar panels and a wind turbine on our school roof"; and
- "How might we improve the looks of our school grounds and local community?"
The model employed at the YAELP has been developed at the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College. This model is research based and is used in educational and business settings throughout the world.
Among the outcomes for each team that attends the YAELP are
- Skills in strategic planning of an environmental initiative
- Designing and implementing a plan of action
- Follow up mentoring by the training team for 8 weeks after the 2 day conference
- Seed money for each youth team's project
- Traning in "change leadership" skills
The registration fee of $200 covers:
- Breakfast, lunch, healthy snacks
- Workbooks for designing and implementing the plan of action
- Personal "change leadership" inventory per student and adult
- Two days of professional facilitation for each school/group
- Mentoring by training team for 8 weeks after the conference
- All supplies and materials used at the conference