About Youth Mobilization
The Catholic Climate Covenant mobilizes U.S. based high school students around climate action. From webinars, to curriculum, and leadership team development, the Covenant offers youth and those who work with youth resources to organize for creation care through a faith-based, Catholic perspective.
What We Do - Objectives of the Program
Inspire: Youth are inspired and hopeful because of the message of Laudato Si’. This inspiration and newly-found leadership in turn inspires the whole Church to act.
Develop and Train Leaders: We form teams of high school students. They are mentored by professional leaders in the Church and in climate science. Additional training includes: one-on-one relationship techniques, community organizing basics, advocacy skills, understanding Church leadership and structures, and community building.
Mobilize: Many youth in our Church want to take action and care deeply about the climate crisis but do not have an outlet to do so. We seek to support, accompany, and mobilize those youth to make changes in their communities and in the Church.
Make Change: The leadership teams will host an annual Catholic Youth Climate Summit (CYCS). The objective of the CYCS is for each attendee to leave with an action plan to take to their parish, school, or community.Â
Advocate: Youth are passionate about changing systems that contribute to the climate crisis. We prepare them to advocate to decision makers in their schools, Churches, and communities, urging them to make decisions in the interests of the common good, to care for creation, and ensure a brighter future for their generation.
Approaches in the Program
Teams will consist of 7-12 students. The student leaders are the primary leaders/decision makers, including coordinating and leading the Catholic Youth Climate Summit (CYCS). Youth apply to be on the leadership team at the beginning of the school year and commit for the full year (September-April), with the option of reapplying for the following year. They meet, via zoom, twice a month.
Leaders in the Church and climate fields train and provide the leadership team with the spiritual and practical skills they will need to be successful.
The CYCS will serve as a catalyst for action. After the event, the leadership team will follow up with the attendees to check the progress of their action plans. Additionally, the youth will partner on larger actions, such as: rallies, environmental lobby days, etc.
We will follow the Native American practice of Circle Keeping, a process that brings together individuals who wish to engage in honest communications, community, and relationship development. The Circle Keeping practice will be deployed by the youth leaders to open intergenerational and decision-maker dialogues.
Youth Climate Summit
Catholic youth call us, the Church, and the world to bold climate action, and the Youth Climate Summit last weekend in the Chicago Area was a huge success! The Archdiocese of Chicago partnered with Catholic Climate Covenant on February 26th to host the summit in Chicago. Our youth mobilization program manager Kayla Jacobs helped host the gathering attended by some 70 students from Catholic high schools in the area who are eager to lead and act on climate change inspired by our Catholic faith.
We were overjoyed to see all the young Catholics who gathered and brainstormed ways to turn their faith into action for our common home! More youth activities are soon anticipated, as high schoolers in other dioceses are seeking similar opportunities to collaborate with us.
