Youth Yathra –Green leaders to combat Climate Change

What is Youth Yathra 2016?

Youth Yathra 2016 is a programmewhich focuses on “Creating Green Youth Leaders” who will be change makers in action against climate change. This is a programme initiated by Eco Friendly Volunteers(ECO-V)under a grant received from American Embassy Sri Lanka. A 10 month training session each in Jaffna, Kandy, Matara districts were conducted as the first stage of the project.ECO-V invited more than over 120 youth (Yathrees)with the support of American Corners at each district and conducted  a series of workshops for giving them the relevant knowledge and information about their environment and how to protect it by combatting Climate change during the 10 months. The themes discussed in the sessions focused on healthy food, conscious consumerism, organic farming, connecting with nature, effective communication and its relationship with climate change. These trained youthYathrees are expected to be the Green Leaders as well as messengers for their localities in the future leading the climate actions. This will be launched as a “YATHRA” in the final stage.

Why Youth Yathra?

Now the programme has come to its final stage and the Yathrees in three districts are ready to pass the information to the general public as YATHRAS. Trained youth are ready to conduct 3 Yathres in Jaffna, Matara and Kandy starting from August. The first Yathra is YalrYathra which will take place in Jaffna on 5^th and 6^th of August 2016. As a condition of the programme there was no financial allocation for public campaigning for two reasons. One is that the Yathrees should learn to raise funds locally and second is to encourage the public - private partnership in combatting climate change and protecting Nature. It was expected that this project to  be a great opportunity for all the people who are interested in protecting Mother Nature to partner to serve and protect her.

Yarl Yathra 2016

The YarlYathra is the first Youth Yathra organized by the trained youth in Jaffna under Youth Yartha 2016.

How do we do Yarl Yathra?

YarlYathra is a 2 day environmental campaign planned in Jaffna city. All the youth who were trained during past 10 months within Jaffna will be joining with 25 youth from Southern Sri Lanka. These Southern Sri Lankan youth will be either past Yathreesof ECO-V or under current youth Yathraprogramme in Kandy and Matara.It will be held on 05^thand 06^thof August 2016. All the youth will meet in Jaffna on the 5^th afternoon and will join for a street cleaning campaign. This will be a learning experience rather than a cleaning campaign for them to understand human impact on Mother Nature. All youth from South and North will take part in this event. There will be a gathering in the evening at American corner in Jaffna to share all their experiences.

The next day (6^th August) will be started with preparing breakfast in Jaffna style and through this event all youth will exchange the healthy food culture, practices and synergies while they make their breakfast. Then the team will be walking around Jaffna city in creating awareness on protecting Mother Nature and will return for a public exhibition organized at American corner, Jaffna. The theme of the Exhibition is “Combat Climate change as Green Leaders”. This exhibition is open for public. The day two will be over with as award ceremony for YarlYathrees. Official invitees for these events will be representatives from US Embassy Sri Lanka.

Eco Friendly Volunteers (ECO-V)

ECO-V (www.eco-v.org) is an Environmental Organization working in Sri Lanka for last 15 years. We are a team specialized in scientific research on Animals and plants and conducting training on environmental conservation related topics. We have been working in Sri Lanka for last 15 years under the topics of climate change, Green leadership, Solid waste Management, Eco friendly Lifestyle, food safety, conscious consumerism and Bio diversity conservation.  We conducted research on Spot winged Thrush, Purple faced leaf langur, Eurasian Otters and Peak Wilderness Sanctuary. The Yathra as a new method of training Green leaders to combat Climate Change was introduced by ECO-V in 2011 with the partnership of Journeys for Climate Justicehttp://www.journeysforclimatejustice.org.au/ (JCJ) in Australia which is a partner organization of ECO-V. We have conducted 3 Yathres since 2001 namely, KelaniNadeeYathra( 2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfcefmB9OkI) Papedi( 2013 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSEy3OY5Vjw) and KolombaYathra (2015http://www.iucn.org/content/kolamba-yathra-2015-interfaith-journey-sustainability-sri-lanka). All the projects are mentioned in our blog site.  http://ecofriendlyvolunteers.blogspot.com/2015/09/kolamba-yathra.html

Project funded by American Embassy of Sri Lanka