Resilient Roots: Youth Climate Justice Leadership
The Resilient Roots Project lifts up the voices and leadership of middle and high school age youth in taking climate action through digital storytelling and media arts in order to strengthen climate resiliency in communities that stand to be hit first and worst by the climate crisis. This collaboration between Switzer Fellow Catalina Garzón-Galvis, StoryCenter and Frontline Catalysts has received a second year of Switzer Leadership Grant funding.
Frontline Catalysts is a community-based organization in East Oakland, CA that elevates the leadership of youth of color most impacted by the climate crisis to advance just climate solutions through community science, service learning and leadership skills-building. StoryCenter is an international community arts and participatory media organization rooted in the craft of personal storytelling. Garzón-Galvis is a 2005 Switzer Fellow with over twenty years of experience with planning and facilitating popular education projects with community-based organizations and coalitions on environmental health and justice issues, including community resilience to climate change.
Their partnership developed the Frontline Voices curriculum with support from a 2023-2024 Switzer Foundation Leadership Grant. The curriculum harnesses the power of digital storytelling to amplify youth voices. Using personal narratives, photos, videos, and other multimedia outlets, youth share their authentic experiences, reaching the community through engaging and creative platforms. This approach raises awareness and fosters empathy and understanding, driving community support for climate justice initiatives.
"Creating short videos or digital stories based on their lived experiences with climate change [is] a powerful medium [for youth] to share their visions for climate solutions,” Garzón-Galvis said.
As a participatory empowerment-based approach, digital storytelling centers the voice and agency of storytellers in making meaning of and sharing their lived experiences.
Catalina Garzón-Galvis, 2005 Switzer Fellow
“In the first year of our collaboration, I’ve realized how impactful and transformative the digital storytelling process has been in elevating the confidence and leadership of participating first generation migrant youth by providing a unique way to affirm and amplify their experiences and visions for solutions with other youth, community members and decision makers,” Garzón-Galvis reflected. “I witnessed first-hand how, through creating a digital story, a participating young person found her voice and agency to express herself in front of a large group at the community screening we held.”
In its second year, Resilient Roots will integrate the Frontline Voices curriculum into upcoming climate justice youth programming with high school-age youth and expand the reach of the curriculum. Participants will create short videos based on their lived experiences with local climate change impacts and share their experiences with digital storytelling with other youth leaders and community members at the Oakland Youth Climate Summit and a school forum. Lastly, they will plan and co-facilitate a summer digital storytelling workshop with youth to prepare them to lead a training-of-trainers on digital storytelling for teachers in Oakland. These activities will elevate the voices and leadership of high school age youth facing the effects of climate change.
Targeted environmental outcomes of the project include:
- Increased awareness and understanding of how local climate change impacts affect youth on the part of youth, community members, and other target audiences;
- Increased engagement of participating youth, Frontline Catalysts staff, and teachers in narrative work to advance transformative climate justice campaigns; and
- Improved communication about local climate change impacts and potential solutions using digital media with youth, teachers, community members, and other target audiences.
This project will also advance Garzón-Galvis’ leadership in the action research field and mid career advancement goals by further incorporating creative participatory media methods into her capabilities as an action research practitioner.
“I am profoundly grateful for the experiential learning and personal growth that the first year of working on this project has granted me,” Garzón-Galvis shared.
