Power to the Future

Waverley Council’s intergenerational Power to the Future Program brought together local teens and seniors to foster community climate leadership at a generational scale. The program aimed to:

• Normalise environmental protection
• Build climate change knowledge and skills
• Enhance awareness of impacts on local natural resources and ecosystems
• Reduce climate-related anxiety
• Create hope for the future

Over 2.5 years, ten passionate local youth and six dedicated seniors were supported by council staff and seven local environmental groups to co-design projects and activations. They created short films, influenced networks, presented to council decision-makers, fostered community action on localised solutions and created an online game of 40 hyperlocal missions. The program empowered youth climate action and strengthened the social capital needed for our community to be climate resilient.

Climate change is making our kids feel powerless and fearful. While most climate change events focus on the biophysical and economic impacts, eco-anxiety is emerging as a significant and urgent youth issue. The growing climate youth movement and global protests indicate that young people want a voice in their future but, without voting rights, are often powerless. At the same time, our senior citizens have an intrinsic understanding of local changes in climate over their lifetimes, and they, like our youth, often feel that their concerns are not being heard by decision-makers.

Power to the Future gave the younger members of our community a voice by improving their climate literacy and leadership skills. Supported by the seniors and local environmental community groups, the program offered youth a variety of platforms to call for change. Together, the group worked to translate their shared knowledge, thinking, and ideas into positive actions through a fun online game that was then played by 18 local households. Between August and November last year, 422 local missions were implemented by 84 local community members to address climate resilience through emission reduction, habitat, consumption and food waste actions.

Finally, the program was presented alongside other high-impact education initiatives during Sydney's first Climate Action Week in March 2024.

P2F brainstorming and visualisation sessions

“To me, the program is a way of empowering young leaders, as well as older people, to develop a climate initiative.  I also see it as an opportunity for older people to mentor younger people and to share their ideas, that is, to reflect on our generation and help to foster the next.” (Senior Participant 01)

“What I’ve learned, from talking to my peers and also from older people who've lived here for a long time, is that that there's a lot of people who want to make a difference, and if someone will approach them to make a change, they'll happily try to help our environment. But I think a lot of people in Waverley would rather work as a group or community than to try and start an independent movement. It’s not that people don’t want to do the right thing, but no one wants to go it alone.” (Youth participant, 01)

• Increased knowledge and skills (100% youth,50% seniors) and confidence to act and communicate about climate (100% youth).
• Increased participant hopefulness (83% for youth and 80% for seniors).
• Delivered 24 upskilling activities, including yarning circles and digital storytelling training
• Produced 10 short films shared with over 1000 people at movie nights, precinct meetings and online.
• Co-designed game played by 84 community members, completing 422 hyperlocal climate actions.
• Increased youth-led actions, including climate-themed art competitions, clothes swaps, saving 403 clothing items from landfill, speaking at community and business summits and events and gaining internships at Taronga Zoo and Council.

“I love the idea of trans-generational actions like this one, work together to help bring down carbon emissions. When an older person plants a tree they may not see it grow but the young generation who watched them do it, will remember that it was for them. This paring up of the young and the old is so crucial to the success of our future societies, where everyone may have something to offer.” (Senior participant, 02)

“I loved working with the seniors because they were so supportive and wise and made sure we were doing the right thing. They have been on this planet a long time, and I know they want to protect it as much as I do.” (Youth participant, 02)