Links for Youth

Dreaming of combatting climate change? Eradicating extreme poverty? Speaking out for social justice?

The links below provide students with exciting opportunities to take action on sustainability at school and within the community. Students can select a program of interest from the list provided and begin to make a difference today! Just follow these 4 simple steps...

Step 1:

Choose your area of action!

Anti Idling

Food Security

Anti Oppression

HIV/AIDS

Climate Change

Human Rights

Composting

Millennium Development Goals

Energy

Sustainable Lifestyles

Environmental Education

Tree-Planting

Environmental Justice

Water

Fair Trade

Step 2:

Download the inspiring idea-packed youth action guide!

Step 3:

Take action in your community!

Step 4:

Celebrate! We'd love to hear all about your success! Please send us your stories and your pictures.

Anti Idling

Guide for an Effective No Idling Campaign

Natural Resource Canada's Idle-Free Zone is Canada's first website dedicated to helping Canadians stop unnecessary engine idling in their communities. This website offers ready-made information and graphic materials to help municipalities, school boards, businesses and others implement idling campaigns.

Anti Oppression

Fire It Up! A Toolkit for Youth Action

We live in a world full of inequalities and injustices. As a youth organizer, not only will you join the struggle to battle these injustices, but you will find yourself trapped within them as they affect the way you relate to others, how your group works, and the way you approach different issues. The Youth Action Network’s Fire It Up! Toolkit will help you integrate an anti-oppression framework into all your organizing efforts.

Climate Change

CYCC Action Guide

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition is a youth-led, non-partisan group that aims to politically prioritize the urgency of the climate crisis. It has diverse buy-in and focuses on the human rights, environmental, and economic aspects of climate change. The CYCC’s Action Guide outlines actions you can do by yourself or in community with others to tackle climate issues.

Composting

At Home with Composting

Composting is a natural process through which organic material is converted into a soil-like product called compost or humus. The process works with the help of micro-organisms such as bacteria and fungi combined with air and moisture. Composting is an important way to recycle and can be done at home. It is an easy way to reduce the amount of household garbage by about one third. The Composting Council of Canada’s “At Home with Composting” guide will show you how it’s done.

Build Your Own Composter

9 different building plans for building your own composter!

Vermicomposting Guide

Live in the city? No room for a backyard compost? Try vermicomposting! Red wriggler worms will do all the work for you. Learn all about it in Gorilla Composting’s Vermicomposting Guide

Energy

EYA Building Guides

Want to build real models of sustainability? The Environmental Youth Alliance has all sorts of guides on how to build neat models like micro-hydro energy generators and biomass powered cars.

Environmental Education

ecoMentors Programme

Note: This programme is only available in the Greater Toronto Area

ecoMentors is an environmental education program that trains and provides support to high school volunteers to deliver engaging and fun environmental education lesson plans in elementary schools across the GTA. ecoMentors matches high school students with elementary classes to provide an enriching and rewarding experience for both groups.

Environmental Justice

YEN Green Justice Guide 

The Youth Environmental Network’s guide to bringing Green Justice into your school and community – and this doesn’t just mean recycling more, it means fair and equal food, water, and spaces for people across the planet!

Fair Trade

Student Guide to Fair Trade Activism

Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing their rights of, disadvantaged producers and workers – especially in the South. Transfair Canada’s Student Guide to Fair Trade Activism explores the fair trade system and offers a step-by-step plan to promoting fair trade in your school.

Make Trade Fair Campaign Toolkit

Whether you write letters, send emails, organise events, promote the campaign through your local newspaper, radio or TV station, or take other actions, your support for Make Trade Fair is valuable and vital. The Campaign Toolkit here will take you through a whole set of resources which will help you in your campaigning.

Food Security

World Vision 30 Hour Famine Leader’s Guide

All over the world, there are young people who care about hunger, poverty, and injustice—and who are doing something about it. Participate in World Vision's 30 Hour Famine and you can change the lives of children around the world!

HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS Youth Guide to Action

Introducing TakingITGlobal's official HIV/AIDS Youth Guide to Action! This comprehensive guide contains inspiring stories and useful resources for youth; all the necessary tools to help carry out your project, raise awareness, and help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Toolkit to Raise Awareness about Children Orphaned by AIDS

The Youth United for Global Action and Awareness toolkit gives you all the information you need to raise awareness in your community about AIDS, and the impact that this disease is having on children around the world.

Human Rights

Amnesty International Activist Toolkit

Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who stand together with individuals and communities around the world who human rights are under attack. The AI Activist Toolkit was created to help young people in Canada plan activities and actions to promote the respect of human rights of people around the world.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

MDGs Youth Action Guide

The Millennium Campaign encourages young people worldwide to add their voice to the global fight against poverty. Through partnerships with various global youth networks and organizations, the Campaign supports youth-led movement across the world on the Millennium Goals.

Sustainable Lifestyles

The Otesha Book

The Otesha book is a behind-the-scenes look at how our daily actions change the world! Packed with cool graphics, it presents knowledge and facts that help remove our blinders and make us aware of some of the problems in the world. It shares interesting and inspiring stories and offers many ideas for taking the easy, fun, beautiful actions that can make our world a better place.

YOUTHXCHANGE: Training Kit on Responsible Consumption

Through YOUTHXCHANGE, UNEP and UNESCO show young people that it is possible for all of us to translate our aspirations for a better world into everyday actions.

Consume This – Buying That Matters

The Canadian Centre for Pollution Prevention's nifty, graphic-packed guide uses examples such as “The Life-Cycle of a T-Shirt”, “What’s in a Soccer Ball”, and “How to Pack a Litterless Lunch” to introduce the concept of sustainable consumption. This booklet will empower you to participate in sustainable consumption activities in your own life and in your community!

Tree-Planting

Tree Planting Tips

Tree planting is the most popular Earth Day event and one of the most common activities people associate with helping the Earth. Millions of trees are planted by Canadians each year. Planting is an act of putting down roots and contributing to the future. The simple act of planting a tree helps the environment in so many ways. This Ecokids Guide outlines the nuts and bolts of tree planting.

 

Water

Yellow Fish Road

All across Canada, young people are taking to the streets and marking storm drains with yellow fish as a reminder that all materials poured down the drain will affect fish, fish habitat, and all life forms (including humans) that depend on clean water. Thanks to young Yellow Fish Road volunteers, since 1991, thousands of Canadians have learned about their water supply, the impact it has on the health of their community and the need to protect it.

Wetland Monitoring Guide

Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems in the world, comparable to rain forests and coral reefs. They also play an integral role in the ecology of a watershed: filtering pollutants out of the water, and providing habitat to a huge diversity of plant and animal species. The EPA’s Wetland Monitoring Guide outlines the steps you need to take to protect your local wetland.

RiverWatch

Note: This program is available in Alberta only.

The award-winning RiverWatch Science Program takes tens-of-thousands of students on raft trips down their local rivers. Students collect important environmental data that helps to answer the question “Is your river healthy?”

RiverWatch

Note: This program is available in Alberta only.

The award-winning RiverWatch Science Program takes tens-of-thousands of students on raft trips down their local rivers. Students collect important environmental data that helps to answer the question “Is your river healthy?”

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