Given the continued uncertainty and risks of Covid, and how great Virtual YEA Camp was last  year, we felt good about our choice to hold YEA Camp virtually again — and it turned out great!

All in all, we held 4 sessions and had almost 100 campers. We had amazing guest speakers and inspiring activities, raised thousands of dollars for great causes, learned so much, strengthened our community, and saw huge growth in our campers.

It’s so hard to explain YEA Camp in a blog post. Yet, every year we try!

Here are some ways our campers said in their evaluation they would describe Virtual YEA Camp to a friend:

• a fun, empowering, and educating experience where you stepped outside of your comfort zone and made a difference.
• A great experience with absurdly nice people who show you easy but often ignored ways to make a difference.
• YEA Camp is a diverse, engaging, and social camp about activism that helps you raise money, make friends, and learn.
• I would describe it as a wonderful community experience where you get to learn about important issues in the world while also just having fun with the other campers!
• The Best Camp Ever

How Does Virtual YEA Camp Compare to In-Person YEA Camp?

It took months of about 20 past YEA Campers and staff having planning meetings to figure it out last year, but eventually, we came up with an exciting, dynamic schedule and curriculum to bring the best of what we do in-person into a virtual setting.

We asked fundamental questions, like “what makes a camp a camp if it’s remote?” And “what are the most important parts of YEA Camp that we need to find a way to do virtually?” And “how can we create a curriculum where people could join us for 1, 2, 3, or 4 sessions where each session could stand on its own?”

We also found ways to take advantage of the benefits of doing camp virtually, like being accessible to more campers, attracting amazing guest speakers, and working on activist projects together.

Virtual YEA Camp is a combination of:

• Workshops – similar to the activism training we do at in-person camps (learning about problems in the world and building skills and confidence to address them)
• Change the World (CTW) small groups – campers work on activist projects together (fundraising, advocacy, raising awareness) collaborating with other campers and a counselor passionate about the same cause
• Happy Hour – activities that are similar to what we do at camp during free time, and conducive to Zoom. Some we did this year were improv games, cooking classes,  yoga,  digital arts activism, and virtual visits to animal sanctuaries.
• Evening activities – similar to our in-person YEA Camp activities, like Show Off + Tell and the YEA Show, along with a game night, discussion night, and sharing action plans.

Did we mention that it was super fun?!

Playing activist trivia, a scavenger hunt, baking cookies, and just making friends was a blast. And our Pet Cuteness Contests were actually the cutest!

One of the most special parts of in-person YEA Camp is the love and sense of community. That’s where we knew doing the camp virtually could feel different. Surprising even to us, there was a lovefest at Virtual YEA Camp as well.

Here are some of the comments from the chat as we said our goodbyes on Friday.

• Stefani: THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE!! I’ll never forget the memories and friends made during yea camp !!!!!
• Noelle: This was amazing! Don’t forget us all when you do great things for this world! 《3
• Dax: Thank you to all the counselors for teaching me and thank you to all my teammates for helping me and thank you to everyone!!!!!!
• Gigi: Thank you thank you thank you to everyone. You all inspire me so much
• Eliza: thank you so much everybody this past month was amazing
• Nicole:  Thank you. I will never forget this amazing experience.
• Jack: THANK every single one of you

We’re not crying! You’re crying! (And Jack’s crying!)

Our Incredible Speakers and Staff

We are so proud that all of our staff members and many of our guest speakers are not only incredible activists but are previous YEA Campers or staff members themselves who were able to bring their experience from in-person YEA Camp into the virtual setting.

One of the best parts about Virtual YEA Camp is the incredible, highly qualified staff and guest speakers who were able to join us who otherwise might not be able to be with us in-person, and that our staff was able to participate while juggling their busy activist lives! Like:

• Julia Clark, who, as the VP of the Black Student Movement at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, was successfully campaigning to protest the scandal of the school declining tenure to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones
• Rey Watson, who when not with us during virtual camp hours was doing activism on lots of different projects — working with their local Sunrise Hub to protest the PennEast Pipeline, protesting the animal abuse at SeaQuest, and rallying to pressure New Jersey’s governor to support a bill for clean jobs in their state
• Monica Carr, 4x YEA counselor who now lives in Guatemala and was able to join us on staff from another country, while other amazing staff members Alina de Zoysa, Liam-Davis-Bosch, Maya Diaz-Villalta, and Andina Aste-Nieto were able to juggle YEA Camp while busy preparing to go away to college for the first time, on vacation with family, having another part-time job, and/or managing other personal, family, and activist commitments.

And many of our amazing guest speakers would not have been able to attend YEA Camp in-person, like:

• Two former YEA Camp counselors who now have their PhDs in activist fields: Dr. Alice Ragland has a PhD in Multicultural and Equity Studies in Education, from Columbus, Ohio; and Dr. Abel Gomez, who recently completed his PhD and will be teaching in the department of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. They would not have been able to join us in-person
• An incredible activist (name withheld) who has long Covid and has been sick for well over year. This person would have been on staff with us this year and last year if not for Covid. Doing YEA Camp virtually meant that they could be a guest speaker and contribute so much from home.
• Too many other people to list (or to leave out!) who have full-time jobs, families, or commitments that made in-person YEA Camp not possible for them to attend but who were able to join us this virtually summer.

You can see just some of our speakers here.

It’s amazing for our campers to get to learn from such outstanding activists!

YEA Camp Curriculum

YEA Camp’s curriculum has been developed and iterated over the course of more than a decade, and over the past year and a half, we’ve worked on adapting it to an online setting.

At in-person as well as at Virtual YEA Camp, our curriculum is focused on developing:

• knowledge – about problems in the world
• skills – to be able to dress them effectively
• confidence – to speak up and take action, and
• community – to know you’re not alone and have the support you need

These core areas were built into our curriculum at each of our 4 sessions:

• Becoming a Changemaker: building a foundation for what activism is, examining your identity, and finding ways to make a difference for a cause that you care about in a way that inspires you
• Understanding the Issues: learning more about major problems in the world — like racism, gender equality, climate change and animal cruelty — and how those issues connect to one another, and many more
• Skills to Make a Difference: developing core activism skills that can be applied to any cause or issue, like campaign planning, fundraising, communication skills, and publicity.
• Careers for Changemakers: seeing examples of so many different ways people are making a difference in their careers, from being a social entrepreneur to a therapist, an attorney to a PhD.

Each week, campers got to learn from amazing youth activists — former YEA Campers just a few years further along. Campers worked in small Change the World groups to work on different activist projects on their cause. In their groups, they did advocacy, launched fundraisers, and educated themselves and others on their issue of importance.

Camper Accomplishments

Ultimately, YEA Camp is all about what our campers accomplish after camp is over.

But with Virtual YEA Camp, our campers did activism during camp!

They made Activism Starter Guides to educate themselves and others about their cause, they raised thousands of dollars for the nonprofits of their choice, and they did advocacy to reach out to decision-makers to make a request for their cause.

We’re still calculating the accomplishments, but in our campers’ words, here are some of what they accomplished:

• I made new friends, helped raise money for a great cause, learned new things, jumped out of my comfort zone, and became more aware of society’s problems.
• I made a more realistic and achievable action plan and I also made a call to a state representative!
• Met a lot of amazing activists and mentors, and created an action plan for after camp.
• I learned so much about being an activist, and I got to plan for what comes next, and meet so many amazing people.
• I helped create a campaign guide for the Green New Deal!
• Called my congress representative and raised money for Greenpeace!
• I shared our fundraiser and got tons of my family involved and helped them to become more aware. We surpassed our fundraising goal!
• I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and it ended up being really fun.

And so much more!

What’s next

What’s next for our campers is changing the world! They all have action plans to make a difference on their cause, and now they have a community to cheer them on along the way.

What’s next for YEA Camp is very much up in the air! There is so much to decide on from here.

We’re going to celebrate our accomplishments and rest for a bit.

We’ll debrief the million things we did well and the million things we can do better.

We’re also going to be saying thank you, thank you, thank you to so many people. To our staff, guest speakers, campers, their families, donors, and everyone else who has supported YEA Camp along the way.

Thank you to you.

And then we will be considering so many possibilities for where YEA Camp could go from here. We have so many ideas of programs we could do online in addition to hopefully being able to hold YEA Camp in person again soon.

What ideas do you have for us? Would you like to be part of the decision-making process? Our community is wide, from past campers, staff, parents, donors, volunteers, and other supporters, and we’d love to hear your input as we continue to reinvent and reimagine the next incarnations of YEA Camp.

To stay up to date on what we’re up to, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and on our email list.

Thanks again for all your support in making another successful YEA Camp summer possible!

The post Another Amazing YEA Camp Summer Training Young Activists Online appeared first on YEA Camp.

Even if you’re lucky enough not to be targeted directly, just watching the news or even our social media feeds these days bring a daily assault on so many issues progressives care about: human rights and equality, environmental protection, animal welfare, and the state of our democracy and our discourse, for starters.

How do we cope without burying our heads in the sand?

“Self-care” has become a popular topic in recent years, but it wasn’t a term I had even heard of when I started out as an activist 20 years ago. I recently recognized that, without consciously planning it, I’ve been using some key strategies that have helped me keep going all these years, though they’re a bit different than what folks normally think of when we think of self-care. In addition to the basics that most of us know (though may not necessarily do), like eating healthy, exercising, meditation, and getting enough sleep, choosing our approach to activism and how we engage with the problems in our world can help us use our time strategically and avoid burning out.

At Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp, a summer camp for social change, we have expanded our focus on self-care since the 2016 election. This year we will host our second year of YEA Camp for Adults as well, and we will make even more time for this. We will do yoga and journaling and meditation, yes, and we will also focus on how we can do activism in ways that not only make a big difference in the world but also sustain ourselves. We’ll also have time in nature and the opportunity to visit with rescued animals at the sanctuary we will be staying at. But I digress….

Here are 10 approaches to self-care that might support you in your journey as an activist and human.

1. Resist

So many YEA Campers have been speaking out against this administration.

It might seem like doing activism is not a form of self-care or is even the opposite of self-care, but resisting harm is self-preservation and helps us know we are taking action on what matters to us.

When your house is on fire, it’s hard to go take a bubble bath. We need to sound an alarm and put out the fires.

“Activism is the antidote to despair,” said Joan Baez, and taking action can not only bring about change but also keeps us action-oriented so we can protect ourselves and our community and don’t feel helpless.

While social justice issues are very interconnected, to avoid overwhelm, at YEA Camp we recommend focusing on one main issue, what we call your IOI, or issue of importance. Nobody can solve any of the major problems of the world alone, but all of our actions add up to make a cumulative difference. Taking breaks and pacing yourself as needed for you and your life are key.

To get more involved in activism opposing this administration, connect with Indivisible, sign up with 5 Calls to call your legislators, or get involved with any of the many organizations working to bring about social justice.

2. Focus on other types of activism you enjoy or can easily accomplish to see an in-person, real-time impact.

There is so much we can all do in our communities to make a difference.

Resistance activism is playing defense, stopping something bad from happening. As important as that currently is, it’s also difficult and exhausting, and a “victory” just means stopping something terrible.

We also need to proactively find ways to make good things happen. This can include volunteering at a local shelter or community organization, doing a neighborhood cleanup, teaching people what you know, or greening your school or office.

Is there a way to combine something you love to do with a cause you believe in? Or a way you could get involved that doesn’t involve convincing sold-out politicians to change their policies?

It’s also empowering to recommit to daily actions that you have direct control over. Think driving less, eating fewer animal products, boycotting harmful companies, buying less stuff, and speaking up in oppressive situations. Knowing that we are doing these daily things can help us feel OK about taking the time off we need. Try to bring humor, lightness, and joy to counter the stress associated with the issues we’re working to address.

3. Think of yourself in a larger activism context.

You don’t need to get your PhD in Social Change, but just learning about how change has happened in the past can reframe our thinking in a more long-term context. It can be humbling to realize just how many actions it takes to cumulatively bring about systemic change, and to recognize that none of us can ever do “enough.” That also frees us up to pace ourselves. Even though we may not see big results right away, each small step adds up. Two short videos about the gay rights movement and civil rights movement serve as a reminder that all of the actions so many people took led to big change.

4. Donate money.

If you’re feeling depleted or demoralized about the state of the world, a donation is essentially paying someone else to do the work that you’re not able to do. And giving not only does good, it makes us feel good — and activism that combines doing good with feeling good is a win-win that we should do as much as we can. Even better that it only takes a minute and then you can go do whatever you need to do.

Even if you are not in a good financial situation at the moment, since you’re reading this, you can probably donate $1. Maybe $10 or $100? Or more, if you can. Choose an organization doing good work (here are many we recommend), and then commission them (or us) to do more of it while you take time to do what you need to do.

5. Follow just the right amount of the right news.

As activists, we want to be generally aware of what is going on — sometimes it can be more stressful not to know — but you don’t need to know intimate details of every horrible thing happening in the world each day. Learn just enough of what you need to know for the activism you will be doing. Some specific tips:

• Remove any news apps from your phone and disable news notifications.
• Give yourself a time limit of the amount of time you can spend on the news or social media each day. Monitor it so it doesn’t get out of hand.
• Ask yourself: Do I really need to know the details of this? What will I do with this information? Will this help me to make a bigger difference, or make me feel more demoralized?
• Sometimes we need to laugh instead of cry. Watching Alec Baldwin’s dead-on Saturday Night Live performances, and critiques from Seth Myers, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, or Stephen Colbert can be as gratifying as a bubble bath. In fact, there’s actually reason to believe that satire is better equipped to critique Trump than mainstream news.

6. Build community and ask for what you need

Some of our community at YEA Camp for Adults

OK, enough about activism. We need to reach out and create tighter community than we’ve had before. We’ve currently got a perfect storm of disconnection. While so many of us communicate more with our friends by typing than talking, we also are more likely than older generations to move far away from our families and to be single later in life. Statistically, we’re less involved in community organizations, whether it be religious or civic, and we are less likely to know our neighbors. And there’s an all-out assault on just about every community of people, animals, and the planet who are not straight white men.

We need to know that we can count on others when we need it, and we will feel good to do the same for others. So meet your neighbors, try going to local events, maybe find a MeetUp, talk to people you come in contact with, connect with like-minded people through social media, and be in better touch with your expanding circle of friends and family. If you need help, there are resources to support you even in the most dire of circumstances.

At YEA Camp, we focus on giving campers the knowledge, skills, confidence, and community to make a bigger difference on their cause when they get home. We believe that being a part of a like-minded and dedicated community makes all of us stronger advocates. We want to be your cheerleader!

7. Manage your life and take care of yourself in ways that are right for you.

Typically, when we think of self-care, we may picture a spa day or yoga class, and these, of course, can be great. But we need to go deeper to assess what we can do to fully take care of ourselves.

In some ways, we all need the same basic things as a baseline, such as eating healthy food, access to clean drinking water, getting exercise, sleeping enough, safe shelter, and nourishing relationships. So many people, especially of lower income, are not getting these basic needs met.

• Evaluate different areas of life that cause you anxiety, from work stress to health issues to your home, relationships, or finances, and start dealing with the most critical ones.
• Get more rigorous doing what you need to do because taking care of ourselves is a precursor to taking care of others.
• Tackle unhealthy and develop healthy habits and practices as directly as possible to take care of yourself and your one precious life.

From stopping smoking to getting check-ups to paying bills on time, healing your relationships to pursuing your goals, or otherwise “adulting,” you are in charge of managing your life. When you don’t do it well, other things start to suffer, including your activism.

As activist hero Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

8. Figure out and do what you love.

YEA Camp for Adults is held at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary.

To stay in this for the long haul, we need to find ways to enjoy our lives, do the things we love, and step away from stressful situations when we need to. Many people are either not clear about what they truly enjoy doing, and many more are clear that they don’t spend much time doing what they love.

If you love to read or write or play music or be outdoors, make time to do that, even if it’s just for a few minutes a day or an hour or two a week.

One of my favorite things about our YEA Camp for Adults is that it is held at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, which provides sanctuary and some animal friends to visit with while we are there as well. Animals have an innocence and gentleness that can be an antidote to stress and help restore our energy and feeling of unconditional love.

At YEA Camp, we combine the seriousness of activism training with fun activities to model sustainable activism.

9. Pursue fun and challenging hobbies and distract yourself as needed.

Pursuing challenging hobbies is a great way to trick your brain to take a break from what it was worrying about so that it can focus on the matter at hand. Studying a new language, learning a musical instrument, creating art, dancing, reading novels, playing games, and any sort of vigorous exercise are great for this. Find something you really enjoy that gets your mind off of things, and have that be your go-to when you need it.

10. Feel your emotions — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our compassion and empathy has led us to become activists for change, but these emotions can sometimes overwhelm us. We are not robots and cannot go numb. We also need to live our lives and enjoy the beauty and possibility that we can create in life.

Being guided by a healthy relationship to our emotions will not only help us as individuals, it will help us as activists. We’ve got to feel the good, the bad, and the ugly. That might mean crying when we need to, journaling, talking things through with friends, or seeing a therapist. It can mean being quiet and meditating or going out in nature to unplug. It also means being grateful for the countless privileges and opportunities, friends, experiences, and beauty in life. When we don’t run away from our emotions, we can run toward what we want.

Finding ways to celebrate the positives and to fully experience joy might feel difficult at times in the context of all the suffering in the world and the harm being done by the Trump administration, but cultivating happiness and gratitude, and fully appreciating the good in life can help rejuvenate us to get through harder times.

Join us this summer!

It’s been said that activism is a marathon and not a sprint. We need to find ways to show up as activists as best we can in the short term, but we also need to recognize when we need to step back, especially if we are from a community that is more at risk, when we are going through personal struggles, or when we know that we are pushing ourselves too hard or not getting our own needs met.

When the government doesn’t take care of its people, we need to work extra hard to take care of ourselves, each other, and animals and the planet too. Each of us has an important role to play in bringing about the change we wish to see in the world.

For more tips on strengthening your change-making abilities, download YEA Camp’s free ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World. Want to see how we integrate self care with leadership training at camp? Join us this summer at YEA Camp for teens or YEA Camp for Adults.

About the Author: Nora Kramer is the Founder and Director of YEA Camp. She is a long time activist who practices self-care by swimming, playing with her dog, Daiya, and eating vegan ice cream sundaes.

The post A Different Approach to Self-Care for Activists in the Age of Trump appeared first on YEA Camp.

This is past summer was our 10th year, and our 27th, 28th, and 29th sessions of YEA Camp, and in all that time we’ve never had to cancel a session.

This is something to be proud of when, in our early years, we were unknown and unproven. We had no pictures or videos or testimonials. A few of those first sessions, we had moments when we worried we wouldn’t get enough attendees to be able to hold camp, but we were committed we would never cancel, and here we are, preparing for summer number 11.

This past summer, on a short break in between our Massachusetts and California camps, I started getting emails, texts, and Facebook messages from parents and staff worrying about something they had seen on the news: there was a massive wildfire in the town where our California camp was scheduled to be held, and the town was being evacuated.

This was 10 days before our camp was scheduled to begin, and 6 days before our staff training was scheduled to be held, on-site — in this town that had just been evacuated due to wildfire. I checked every website I could find, and all reported that the fire was 0% contained and growing stronger.

As a context, we normally reserve our venues about 10 months before camp begins. It’s currently October and we’ve locked in our dates and locations already for this coming summer. (We will be opening up registration soon!) This fire broke out 10 days before camp was scheduled to start, and I knew there was a very real likelihood that even if the fire was put out in time, that the roads might not be opened and that the air might not be healthy to breathe within the time we had before the start of camp. How long could we really wait to find out?

Not knowing what to do yet, I posted something on Facebook. It wasn’t exactly a desperate request for help because I really couldn’t think of anything that could be done. Finding a new venue with such short notice would be impossible, I was sure. It was more something I was posting to get emotional support on. I made it a private post, as I didn’t want parents or anyone else to realize that we really didn’t know what we were going to do at that point. We had about 20 people who already had flights lined up to attend camp. I replied to questions from concerned parents by stalling and saying I would be in touch as soon as I had more information.

What happened next blew me away.

More than 30 people responded to my post, and many of them did so not just with encouragement but also with specific location suggestions. I started contacting places they suggested, and literally the first place I contacted was actually available! I was so confused when the man on the phone asked me specific questions about our dates and number of beds needed instead of telling me that of course they were not available!

The catch was it wasn’t so nice, and we would have had to make some major sacrifices to what we are usually accustomed to in a venue.

I knew it could work as a Plan B so as not to cancel, and I couldn’t believe it, though Plan B+ seemed impossible. Could we find a second venue on no notice?

I tried the other venues people had suggested, but none of those were available. Still, I was shocked that we were able to find anything — and that I found it with basically no effort.

That night I got a text from an acquaintance I had met at an American Camp Association conference I spoke at more than a year before. I didn’t even realize she had my number. Seema had seen my post and asked me if I had found a venue. I thanked her for asking and said I had found one not-so-great option but not finalized it, and I asked if she had any other leads. She offered to reach out to venues she had contacts with the next morning — and literally the next morning I got a call from a Girl Scout camp with availability the exact dates we needed, a beautiful venue in a perfect location. They called me!

And that was it! That’s how we found what seemed like it would be impossible to find — a beautiful new venue in a great location in 10 days — and it took me posting on Facebook once and making a few calls to places that our YEA Camp community had crowdsourced.

To add to it, one catch was that we weren’t able to use the venue for the 4 days of our staff training right before camp. I started researching Air BnBs in the area, but those were hard to find at the size we needed and also pricey. This time I texted a friend, Carolyn, who lives near the venue, and told her we’d be holding our camp nearby and asked if she had any ideas for where we could hold our staff training.

She had the same thought I had had: she posted on Facebook — on her page and in several activist groups she’s in. Within an hour, a friend replied and tagged me offering to set up a Skype call right then to see if his house could be a good fit. This amazing human, Dave, was renovating a large home half an hour from the venue. It was unoccupied but with hot water, electricity, and wifi, and he gave me a Skype tour of it right then. It was beautiful and perfect — and he even got it furnished, buying beds, linens, towels, kitchenware(!) in time for our dozen staff members to take over the home for our training before camp.

The camp itself seems like an afterthought in in this context because of the accomplishment of just not having to cancel it in the first place, but the session was as amazing as always, though filled with challenges beyond our control — like:

• 3 staff members being sick, making multiple trips to urgent care, and taking turns in our isolation area at camp (the person who was the sickest was one of our camp nurses; thankfully we have two!) — and yet we managed it so no campers got sick! — while other staff majorly stepped up as needed throughout the week, with hardly any breaks
• no dishwasher in the kitchen, meaning staff and campers had to wash 60 people’s worth of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack dishes by hand each day
• staff member’s car breaking down at our staff training venue and needing to be towed
• discovering that our beautiful new venue had almost no outdoor lights at night, and needing to install 200 solar-powered lights purchased at the 99 Cents store — oh, so many trips to that store!
• of course reaching out to redirect all of our camper families, staff, and incredible food donors mailing us their delicious products to ensure that everyone got the new location
• probably lots more that I’ve suppressed!

But we did it!

This incredible experience is such a testament to the community of YEA Camp, and the community that I personally recognize that I have in my life. That I could so easily post this crisis on Facebook without a thought of possibility, and then have this all unfold so perfectly and easily is something I could only have hoped for all those years ago. And that our staff could step up to handle all of the challenges that came our way — without our campers even knowing what was going on behind the scenes. I am blown away. What a finale to our 10th summer! And now it’s time to start planning to do it all again next year — just hopefully a little easier.

To find out more about YEA Camp, visit YEACamp.org.

The post What I Learned From the First Session of YEA Camp We Almost Had to Cancel appeared first on YEA Camp.

Happy Earth Day! Each year, as this time rolls around, people gather to celebrate the beauty of nature and our environment. It is the perfect time to learn more about the biggest environmental issues that we are facing and work on taking action!

I’ve gone vegan, learned about climate change, joined organizations to push for environmental action in politics, and worked on a school-wide campaign for stronger recycling. I’ve started making a difference in my own community, and now it’s your turn!

Being an environmental activist can often seem daunting, and the issues themselves seem hugely overwhelming, but once you get active it can be incredibly inspiring and even uplifting to see how many people really care!

Environmental activism is not just about protecting trees or animals. It is also about how people are impacted. We often take it for granted, but humans depend on our environment for clean air, water, and food, which we, of course, cannot live without. There is no way to separate the future of our planet from the future of humanity.

Communities that have been systematically disadvantaged by other injustices, like poverty and racism, are going to be disproportionately impacted by environmental issues like pollution and climate change, and we must organize for justice!

There is no shortage of opportunities to get involved and make a difference, but it can be hard to know where to start! Here’s a helpful list of 5 tips for getting more involved with environmental activism.

1. Go green in your daily life. Individual actions add up and it’s important to start with making changes yourself, like reducing your plastic use or eating plant-based. Be on the lookout for ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint, like driving less, buying less stuff, and making other eco-friendly swaps.

While we want to start with ourselves, we have to address large systemic environmental problems and the impacts of corporations and industries that have a far bigger impact.

2. Green your school or workplace. How could you help make your school or workplace more eco-friendly? Think of ways the school or office could help you and others take the daily actions above, like by having recycle bins, vegan options in the cafeteria, and no styrofoam or disposable trays. Anyplace you see something bad for the environment, think about a possible solution you could help bring about. You can organize with the support of friends or coworkers, and together tackle an important issue. It will take effort, but you will be more likely to see the change right in front of you and it is incredibly rewarding!  

3. Green your community. There are unique ways that environmental issues are going to impact your community, and it’s a lot easier to create a visible change on a local level than on a federal level. Maybe there’s a lake nearby that needs to be cleaned up, and you could do community service. Or you could advocate for improved recycling or composting if they are not available in your town. Are there eco-friendly businesses in your town that you can support or is there a business in your town that is really polluting and that you can try to have held accountable? Another option is to work to pass a local climate action plan.

4. Get involved in politics. Learn about your elected officials and your political candidates’ platforms on climate change and environmental policy. It’s critical to get legislation and laws enacted to enforce climate action and transitions to clean energy. The 2018 midterm elections coming up are a great opportunity to make sure we elect people to Congress who will represent our concerns and interests. Support and vote for candidates that will take action and not accept money from the fossil fuel industry! Check out YEA Camp’s guide to how youth too young to vote can impact an election.

5. Do what you love! When tackling a huge issue like this, it’s important to focus on the aspects that you are called to. There is a role for everyone in environmental activism, whether it is through science and innovating tech solutions or creating art and media to tell powerful stories and messages. There are always ways to link up what you love doing to what is important to you. While activism isn’t always fun, and we need to pursue those ways where we can be most effective even when it’s challenging, it is important that we find ways to enjoy taking action so that we can stay involved for the long run!

All life relies on us having a livable planet, and it is up to all of us to work to protect our environment. How will you make a difference this Earth Day?

Ananya Singh is a high school sophomore in New Jersey, where she studies visual and performing arts. She is an activist for environmental and social justice, and attended YEA Camp in New York 2015, Massachusetts 2017, and is currentlyYEA Camp’s Blog Manager.

If you’d like to get more involved in activism for the environment or another social justice issue, and would like some community support and training to help you on your change-making path, join us this summer at YEA Camp! We have sessions for youth 12-17 and our first ever YEA Camp for Adults!

The post This High School Sophomore Is Urging You to Get Serious On Earth Day appeared first on YEA Camp.

Claire and a rescue turkey at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

Former YEA Camper Claire Tamburello has been impressing us since the beginning. As soon as she got home from camp 3 years ago, we saw her share one story after another on social media about all the activism she was doing at school and in her community. We were so blown away that we invited Claire to be our first ever Counselor In Training who was under 18 (she did an amazing job mentoring our youngest girls) — she just had so much experience, it made more sense to have her on staff!

It’s been an inspiration to see her continue to do activism now that she’s in college, and to see her change-making evolve as she matures. We were thrilled that she agreed to share more about her experience with all of us!

YEA Camp: Hey, Claire! Tell us about the activism you’ve done and what you’re working on now!

Claire: In the past, I’ve focused mainly on animal rights issues. I’ve led a circus protest in my Michigan hometown that brought so much attention that the Kelly Miller Circus was asked not to return to my town. I have participated in and led many demonstrations and protests against factory farming, fur stores, SeaWorld, and other establishments that exploit animals. I have also gone to the state capital to advocate against a wolf hunt in the Upper Peninsula when the issue was being voted on.

Since this interview, Claire participated and spoke at a major march on her college campus about gun control

In 2016, I was an intern for The Humane League and informed classes and individuals at my college about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle. Currently, I’ve shifted gears and am helping to organize a student walkout and rally on my campus to call on lawmakers to reform gun laws in light of recent mass shootings in the United States.

YEA: That’s amazing! How did you get involved with activism and what you’re currently working on?

CT: My volunteer opportunities mainly come through my university’s environmental clubs.

YEA: What challenges have you faced as an activist and how have you dealt with them?

CT: Time and time again, I’ve been told that I can’t make a difference, that I’m just one person and nothing will change because of me. That’s hard to hear but easy to ignore. Simply reminding myself that change is made through many small steps rather than one big one is very encouraging.

YEA: What advice do you have for new activists just getting involved?

CT: Get connected! The best way to stay encouraged is to have a go-to group of like-minded individuals who have been through the struggles you face as a new activist.

Claire with YEA Campers at a New York session where she was a CIT

YEA: How did YEA Camp help you in your activism, if it did?

CT: YEA Camp absolutely helped me with my activism. It gave me many tools to make me a better activist. For example, YEA Camp includes a workshop on leafleting which includes amazing tips on how to effectively spread your message.

YEA: What activist goals do you have in the future?

CT: I am very passionate about reforming gun laws. As previously stated, I’m helping organize a gun reform walkout and rally on my campus. I hope to have a real impact on the students at my college and inspire them to want to make change as much as I do.

YEA: You’re awesome! Anything else you want to tell us?

CT: Everyone who is able to should attend YEA Camp! It has made me a more effective activist and an all-around more considerate person.

YEA: Awww! So glad to hear that!

Claire is 19 years old and a sophomore at the University of Tampa. She was a camper at the 2014 Massachusetts session and a CIT at the New York 2015 and 2016 sessions.

If you or someone you know can relate to Claire and wants to make a bigger difference in the world, come to YEA Camp this summer! We now have a camp for adults too!

The post YEA Camper Activist Spotlight: Claire Tamburello’s Activism Matures As She Does appeared first on YEA Camp.