By Hayden Seder
The Sun Valley Institute’s Youth Council held its inaugural “Claiming Our Future: Youth Action for a Resilient World” Youth Forum July 23-25 at the Argyros Performing Arts Center in Ketchum, paralleling the Sun Valley Institute’s fifth annual Sun Valley Forum, a conference of roughly 200-250 national and international leaders from investment, policy, business, nonprofits, sports, entertainment and academia to share strategies, broaden thinking and ignite new partnerships with a goal of building greater resilience.
Fourteen high school students ranging from incoming freshmen to outgoing seniors attended the Youth Forum after completing a simple application.
The Youth Forum focused on the same themes as the Sun Valley Forum: sustainability, security and the economy. Experts in each field spoke and workshops were held to discuss challenges locally and globally in food, transportation and plastic waste.
The Youth Council was formed in January of 2019 after 17-year-old Ruby Horton attended the Sun Valley Forum with her father and noticed few young people in the audience. Horton asked Aimée Christensen, founder and executive director of the Sun Valley Institute (SVI), about the possibility of running a concurrent event for high school students. SVI reached out to local schools Wood River High School, Sun Valley Community School and The Sage School for representatives to participate in the co-creation of the event. Those who attended the inaugural Youth Forum came from Sun Valley, New York, California and Washington.
“Climate change is a generational justice issue,” said Lexie Praggastis, Youth Forum coordinator of the Sun Valley Institute. “The younger generations will be more impacted by climate change than any other generation previously. To be a catalyst for building a more resilient future, the mission of SVI, youth must be represented and engaged.”
For its first year, the Youth Forum focused on the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Global Risks report, “Out of Control,” which named the top two risks facing the globe as extreme weather events and the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The three-day intensive forum began with Wednesday’s opening keynote session, “Transforming Leadership: Youth Claiming the Future.” Speaking were Eamonn Store, founder and CEO of FairShare; Vic Barrett, Co-Plaintiff, Juliana v. The United States of America & Action Fellow, Alliance for Climate Education; Jonah Gottlieb, executive youth director, National Children’s Campaign & executive director, Our Future Now; Ruby Horton, founder, Sun Valley Institute Youth Council; Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, Lead Plaintiff, Juliana v. The United States of America & Co-Plaintiff in Chernaik v. Brown; Jamie Margolin, co-founder and co-executive director, Zero Hour & Co-Plaintiff in Aji P. v. State of Washington.
A full day of workshops at the Youth Forum was centered on design thinking where students moved from problems to prototypes to pitches, and ended the day giving those pitches. Students designed solutions to the challenges of empowering Aviation High School’s community, in Seattle, with participating in alternative transportation to school, improving access to local food at The Sage School, and shifting practices at Sun Valley Community School to eliminate single-use plastic at school events.
“The Youth Forum came to the Sun Valley Forum to find inspiration and to feel empowered,” Praggastis said. “I watched as the Youth Forum took the main stage and shared their ideas and voices, leaving many in the audience, including myself, in tears. At the end of the day, it was the youth that provided the Sun Valley Forum with inspiration.”
Youth Forum participants attended most of the Sun Valley Forum keynote addresses over the three days and also had time for optional morning hikes, ice-breaker activities, a film screening and a tour of The Hunger Coalition’s Bloom Farm. The Youth Forum wrapped up with a last day spent rafting the Salmon River and lunch at Alturas Lake.
“We were honored to host the Youth Forum, to provide the platform for them to learn, connect and take action, and now they will have a network of allies forever,” said Christensen, founder and curator of the Sun Valley Forum and founder and executive director of the Sun Valley Institute.