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YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD
At Eco Education we believe that building tomorrow’s leaders is the most important task at hand in the world. The establishment of our Youth Advisory Board (YAB) is a critical cornerstone of our organization that deepens the impact of our environmental service-learning programs in the classroom and in the community. The YAB is a instrumental vehicle to embed youth voice throughout the critical revision of our curricula, making it more relevant and therefore more effective. These young leaders will also forge strong mentor relationships with Eco Education staff and Board of Directors as they become completely vested partners in the organization’s development and thus, major decision-makers. Research shows that students who have engaged in the design of service-learning programs will increase their academic achievement, are less cynical, and more inclined to be civically engaged.
In our first year together, the Youth Advisory Board Steering Committee (YABSC) created the application process, structure of meetings, mission, vision, and accountability process for the committee which exists today. This steering committee consisted of high school and college students, many of who had direct experiences with Eco Education’s programs. Thanks to the ingenuity of the steering committee the current Youth Advisory Board will continue to explore the intersectionalities of their passions, dreams, identities, and the power that will become of a youth-led environmental action and justice network between our schools. The Youth Advisory Board grants funds for service-learning projects, supports students during the Urban Stewards process, and helps students implement their service-learning projects.
YAB PROJECTS
- Organized Social Justice Ambassador Training for high school students
- Leading Diversity and Social Justice weekly lunch meetings about race and interecting identities
- Advising Urban Stewards Programs in Minneapolis and Saint Paul
- Leading Toxic Tours around the Twin Cities
A special thanks to Best Buy Children's Foundation, General Mills Communities of Color grant and the Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation for their support of our Youth Advisory Board, which is ultimately strengthening the totality of Eco Education.
YABSC VISION STATEMENT
We the Youth Advisory Board Steering Committee prepare young leaders to take action in their communities to promote environmental and social justice. We provide safe and challenging spaces and opportunities for students across racial, social, economic, cultural and class boundaries to share ideas and experiences in the Twin Cities environmental movement. We believe in the the power of diversity, fresh minds, and understanding that our intersectionalities will make the world a better place.
TO APPLY
Youth Advisory Board Application
MEET THE YABSC
Elise Griffin
Elise is interested in exploring the intersectionalities of environmental issues, identity, privilege, oppression, and community agency. As Program Advisor she is working to collaboratively recognize difference and synchronize inclusive initiatives and actions with emerging multicultural needs in the commons of our urban communities.
As a recent graduate from Macalester College, Elise received her bachelor’s degree in biology with a concentration in international issues and a minor in environmental studies. Elise has studied black bear behavior and migration in Ely, Minnesota, worked hard building trails in the Alaskan wilderness, and served as the Environmental Justice Coordinator and Bike Share Program Coordinator of Macalester College. Her environmental journey began when she studied abroad in Tibet, Nepal, and India on a Himalayan Studies Program. While she was there, she lived with Tibetan refugees, researched climate change in the Himalayas, and spent her time talking to some of the first communities to experience the devastating floods, droughts, and erosion caused by global warming.
Elise enjoys spending her time playing outside, celebrating with friends and family by making food and drink, and working to be courageous and compassionate every day.
Anna Miller
Anna is currently a sophomore at Great River School. She plans to take International Baccalaureate (IB) classes in her junior and senior years and graduate with the IB diploma. Environmental sustainability is a growing interest for Anna as well as environmental justice and she enjoys learning about sustainable environmental and energy practices. Anna is also fluent in Spanish.
On the weekends, Anna volunteers at United Hospital in St. Paul, MN and works at Jerabek’s coffee shop and bakery where she has worked for a year. With her school, she has camped and worked at a Wisconsin organic farm that they visit each year in the spring and the fall. If Anna had the choice to be any sound she wanted, she would opt to be the sound whales make to communicate with each other. Also she can make a great chicken or donkey sound.
Claire Henkel
Interested in raising awareness of environmental and social justice issues, Claire Henkel is exploring the causes and daily perpetuation of such all kinds of inequality within society. She is passionate about sustainability as well as learning new ways that people can improve their consumption habits both on both an individual and institutional level.
Claire is a rising junior at Macalester College where she plans to graduate with a major in Sociology and minors in environmental studies and Hispanic studies. At Macalester she works at the Sustainability Office as a Social Justice Assistant and is a member of the sustainability network which is a group of students dedicated to sustainability projects around the Macalester campus and community.
Claire plans to study abroad in Costa Rica in 2012. While there, where she hopes to study the rise of rural eco-tourism and its effects on both the environment and local community cohesion. Growing up in Kentucky, Claire has enjoyed working for her local farmers market in the summers and helping out with bicycle advocacy events around her city. In her free time she likes nothing better than spending as much time as possible barefoot, hiking around in the mountains and listening to bluegrass music.
Johanna Keller
Johanna is a young woman who is trying to understand her surroundings in a more informed and peaceful way. She is a sophomore at Great River School and studies hard to know as much as she can about science, and other interesting things.
Johanna also tries to create peace and happiness with the people around her, which led to her interest in social and environmental justice. She hopes to graduate high school with the International Baccalaureate diploma and move on to find bigger and better ways to create peace and happiness with the people and places around her. She identifies as bi-racial and is still trying to figure out what that really means.
Johanna spends a lot of her time reading, some of her time volunteering at the Children’s Museum of Minnesota, and some more of her time growing interesting things in her backyard.
Aimee Vue
Aimee is a student at Highland Park Senior High in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In 2009, she co-founded City Backyard Farming LLC, an urban farm that served the local neighborhood with organic Community Supported Agriculture Baskets. The project was inspired by her grandmother, who had a stroke and was nursed back to health with organic foods in 2007. She wanted to share her grandmother's healing story and organic foods. Through a USDA SARE grant to pilot an organic urban farm, the project has been successful serving 27 CSA families and local food shelves. She is continually growing her knowledge on environmental justice and how the world revolves around us and how we take sustainability into consideration. Being a part of the farming community around the Twin Cities, she is aware of the need of youth farmers and the environment.
Aimee is a service leader and advocate, motivated in helping her community in every aspect. Simple things in life like traveling, service-learning, golf, cooking up a storm, picking up an interesting book, or getting down and dirty in the farm are some of her passions in life. In her school, she is very active with Student Council and speech team.
FORMER YOUTH ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
Dafina Bobo, 2010-2011
Max Maternowski, 2010-2011
Kim Morales, 2010-2011 |
