This Earth Day, we hosted our second Power of 10 Festival in Cornwall following the success of last year’s inaugural Festival in Cumbria. The day saw 200 students from across from 15 schools come together for a day of celebration, empowerment, and inspiration for our planet.
We continue to be blown away by the passion and energy today’s young people are bringing to the climate movement. During this year’s Festival, three young climate leaders had the opportunity to interview some of the speakers who lead the day’s workshops, talks, and activities. From the importance of protecting our oceans to eco-anxiety and community-making, Rosie, Rose, and Rebecca dug into some crucial climate and environmental topics:
EMILY CUNNINGHAM MBE | Marine Biologist and Global Conservation Leader
Interviewed by Rosie | Festival Attendee, Elected Member of Cornwall Youth Council, and Member of the National Youth Parliament
E: Hi, my name is Emily Cunningham. I’m a marine biologist and the co-founder of Motion4theOcean.
R: Hi, I’m Rosie. I’m an elected member of the Cornwall Youth Council and I’m a member of the National Youth Parliament. So, what does Motion4theOcean do?
E: The Motion4theOcean is like a blueprint for everything that a local council can do to help recover the health of the ocean. We work with scientists and councillors to make sure that it’s the best it can be, we update it every six months to make sure it’s relevant, and so far it’s been passed by 34 councils all across England – they represent 4.5 million residents!
R: 34 councils, that’s amazing, well done! What councils have joined here in Cornwall?
E: So Cornwall Council has passed a Motion4theOcean, and Falmouth Town Council as well. We’re still waiting on some of the other town councils – hopefully they’ll get involved soon – but it has just been so joyful for me to see the impact that it’s had all across the UK, not just in Cornwall, but way up in the North East as well. It does lots of things like making sure that within the councils’ own processes, they’re thinking about the ocean, but also we put a pledge in there that will make sure that all primary school-aged children will have the opportunity to engage with an ocean or a river firsthand, because we know that by experiencing it firsthand, people care more.
R: So how can young people here at the Festival today or in school work with Motion4theOcean and do something to help?
E: One of the best ways is just to raise awareness of it – you can make your local council aware if they haven’t already done it. So for Youth Councillors, for example, that could be something that might be of interest. But just making sure that our local representatives, whether they are Councillors or MPs, know that young people all across the country care about the ocean, that’s a really great first step. And the Motion4theOcean offers a way for those Councillors to actually step up and make a difference. Out of those 34 councils that I mentioned, 4 of them are inland in the Midlands, so you don’t have to live next to the coast. No matter where we live, we impact the ocean and we can also step up to help protect it.
JAKE CAUSLEY | Sustainability Coordinator, Falmouth University
Interviewed by Rose | Festival Attendee and Community Seat for Cornwall Youth Council
J: My name is Jake Causley and I’m here today running an eco anxiety-to-action workshop..
R: I’m Rose, and I’m a Community Seat for the Cornwall Youth Council. So, why are you here today?
J: I’m here delivering a workshop today all about eco anxiety-to-action. So giving a bit of space for people to check in with themselves and with other likeminded people. How are we actually feeling in response to these big challenges that we’re facing? Because the world doesn’t often give us that space, so leaning into that discomfort and then helping them really tap into how they can use those emotions for good and to catalyse action.
R: What do you think are some of the main barriers young people face to taking action?
J: I think the first barrier is finding those spaces and comfort to actually chat to other likeminded people about this sort of thing, it can feel quite isolating. So finding a sense of community and finding a space where you can actually check in with how you’re doing, you know, ‘I’m feeling stressed, I’m feeling anxious, I’m feeling driven and motivated, feeling confused.’ Further to that is that it’s an overwhelming topic, climate change and sustainability. So I think having the tools and activities to break it down a bit to focus on what’s important to you and on what themes really resonate with you, and focus on what a better future looks like as well.
R: That’s really interesting. What drives you to do what you do?
J: I think having personal experience of moving through eco-anxiety, having that low point and trying to re-ground myself in what I do. I realized that making spaces like this is really valuable and really welcomed, and although the activities seem quite simple, they’re really important and bring out the best in people. I think there’s a lot of awareness about what we need to do, but actually not much connection to some of those actions, so if we really connect people to the actions they’re passionate about and are able to do and work back from there, I think that’s going to result in a lot more collective action.
DR. GEMMA CONNELL | Youth Engagement Lead, Ocean Generation
Interviewed by Rebecca | Festival Attendee
R: Hi, I’m Rebecca. What’s your name?
G: Hi, I’m Gemma and I am Youth Engagement Lead at Ocean Generation.
R: Wow that’s really cool! What are you here for today?
G: I’ve done two workshops so far about finding your blue career, which for us isn’t your traditional marine biology blue career, but any career can be a blue career because we can all help protect our ocean no matter what we do. So I’ve done those two workshops which have gone really well, and then I’ve got a stall where people are quizzing me about all things ocean.
R: What is your favourite thing you’ve done today?
G: I had a really interesting conversation with some of the young people in the workshops, because one of the questions we ask as an icebreaker is ‘which ocean creature would you be and why?’ And it’s quite a revealing question when people give their reasons. We’ve had people say, ‘oh I’d be a jellyfish because then everyone would leave me alone because I could just sting anyone who annoys me,’ or we’ve had people say, ‘oh I’d be a dolphin because I’m so intelligent and friendly.’ I really really love those conversations, they’re so much fun.
R: What is your main goal in your job?
G: At Ocean Generation, we bring the ocean to everyone, everywhere. We do that through lots of ocean education projects, whether that’s workshops or longer projects as well, and what we really really want is to show that it doesn’t matter who someone is, where they come from, how old they are, what they love, or what they do for a living, we can all help protect our ocean because it is so important to every single one of us.
R: What’s the most commonly asked question that you get asked?
G: That’s a really good question! A lot of people say, ‘why the ocean?’ particularly if they live quite far inland. I come from Manchester, so I get that question quite a lot, like ‘why the ocean, we’re so far away from the ocean here!’ But every second breath we take comes from the ocean, so it doesn’t matter how far away we live, it’s important to every single one of us.
BECKY NDEGWA & MAYA RONCHETTI | Restorative Development and Food Education Coordinator & Primary School Co-ordinator, RJ Working
Interviewed by Rosie | Festival Attendee, Elected Member of Cornwall Youth Council, and Member of the National Youth Parliament
B: I’m Becky, and I’m from an organisation called RJ Working.
M: And I’m Maya, and I’m from RJ Working as well.
R: Nice to meet you, I’m Rosie and I’m an elected member from the Cornwall Youth Council and also a member of the National Youth Parliament. So what does RJ Working do?
M: We’re a children and young people’s charity that works across Cornwall in secondary and primary schools and colleges talking to young people about restorative practice – which is what the ‘R’ in ‘RJ’ stands for, ‘restorative’ and ‘restorative justice.’ Generally speaking, we hold community conversations and run workshops in schools and with school communities talking about how to make things better through talking and listening. So that can be about harms to identity or harms to community, harms to yourself or to other people, and conflict. But obviously a huge harm that’s happening every day, all the time is humans causing harm to nature, so we like to try and work with people to heal that relationship.
R: Why did you think coming to this eco-Festival was important?
B: I think it’s really important for young people to get together and make networks and speak to other young people who are also passionate about making a change. I know when I was younger, it was really easy to feel quite lonely and isolated when you’re tackling these really large issues. It just makes things feel so much nicer when you have other people who share the same passion, and sometimes the same fears and worries as you. It’s really important for young people to get together and it’s also just really inspiring to see how many young people are here who want to make a difference as well.
R: What activity are you running here today?
M: We’re bringing three groups together at three different points in the day in one-hour sessions, talking to them about climate campaigning, how they might think about climate campaigns, giving them prompts, and trying to get them to think about who they want to influence or who has power in different scenarios depending on where you’re campaigning and what you’re campaigning for in terms of climate.
You can learn more about Power of 10 and join the movement by visiting https://powerof10.another-way.org.uk/
This year’s Power of 10 Festival was generously supported by the Duchy of Cornwall, Cornwall Council, and the University of Exeter (Cornwall).
