Empowering the next generation: Inside the first Young Planet Leaders Changemaker Academy
This December marks a hopeful moment in the landscape of youth-led climate action: the first graduating class of the Young Planet Leaders Changemaker Academy. It began quietly, with small squares of faces blinking to life across screens in living rooms, school libraries, bedrooms, and community centers around the world, and unfolded into an eight-week experiment in what happens when you give young people structure, mentorship, and the rare chance to collaborate across borders. Thirty-eight students, ages 14 to 22, representing 19 countries and six continents, showed up each week to learn, argue, imagine, and attempt the thing most adults insist is impossible: designing local climate solutions that are both visionary and practical.
At a moment when the planet feels suspended between urgency and fatigue, these young people seemed to operate on an entirely different frequency: one of unguarded ambition, stubborn hope, and the kind of creativity that tends to surface only when no one has yet told you that something can’t be done.
A global classroom for climate leaders
The Young Planet Leaders (YPL) Changemaker Academy was created with a deceptively simple purpose: to give young people the tools, knowledge, and community they need to create meaningful environmental change. On eight consecutive Sundays, participants clicked into small-group workshops and live sessions with thinkers, activists, inventors, and policy experts, many of whom have shaped national or global conversations.
The program opened on September 28 with Erin Schrode, the journalist and founder of Turning Green, who asked the room to reconsider the very idea of climate leadership. Leadership, she said, wasn’t about authority or charisma; it was about curiosity, about allowing oneself to be moved by the fragility of the world and responding with courage rather than despair. Students scribbled notes, nodded, or simply listened, absorbing a definition of leadership that felt less like an expectation and more like an invitation.
From there, the Academy became a kind of expedition. Participants explored goal-setting and purpose with Olympian and New York Times bestselling author Vince Poscente; narrative strategy and media visibility with Vanessa Chase Lockshin, founder of The Storytelling Non-Profit; resilience and trauma-informed leadership with former NYU professor and Rikers Public Memory Project co-founder Piper Anderson; partnership building with Anna Luísa Beserra, the Brazilian inventor behind Aqualuz; and fundraising essentials with Linda Lysakowski, a nonprofit veteran who has helped organizations raise more than $100 million.
In total, six modules were led by distinguished speakers across two continents, an intentionally global approach that mirrored the transnational challenges participants hoped to address.
Turning vision into action
Still, the program’s intellectual scaffolding was only half the story. The core of the Academy, its beating heart, was the Vision-to-Action Project. Each student was invited to draft a climate solution grounded in the realities of their home community. Some projects focused on conservation, others on circular economies; still others aimed to educate, mobilize, or engineer new forms of renewable energy.
At the end of the program, students submitted their proposals to the YPL board for review. Three of these would soon receive funding to help carry the projects beyond the bounds of the classroom and into the world.
A cohort filled with hope
What surprised many students wasn’t the rigor but the intimacy of the experience. Week after week, as cameras flickered on and breakout rooms formed, participants found themselves building a kind of global trust, an unspoken acknowledgment that they were part of something. For young people who often feel alone in their climate concerns, stepping into a community that not only shared their anxieties but matched their determination felt transformative.
“For me, my favorite part of this program was the fact that I could share my ideas, thoughts, and culture with other people around the world,” one graduate said. “It was super special and will stay with me forever.”
Another student described the quiet but decisive shift that happens when an idea moves from abstraction to possibility:
“Before the Academy, I knew I wanted to build something helpful, but I didn’t fully understand how to turn that into action. The sessions made me more confident and more excited to keep creating impact long after the program ends.”
Many spoke of tools, but even more spoke of finding purpose:
- “I felt supported, inspired, and motivated to keep creating positive impact in my community.”
- “The Academy gave me valuable skills, confidence, and clarity in my leadership journey.”
The sentiment echoed throughout the cohort: their ideas mattered.
A new generation of planet leaders
This inaugural class marks a beginning, not only for the program but for the young people now carrying new skills, new confidence, and a network that stretches across continents. Thirty-eight emerging leaders— engineers, writers, activists—left the Academy with projects already taking root in villages, cities, neighborhoods, and schools around the world.
At a time when climate news often tilts toward catastrophe, the YPL Changemaker Academy offers a different narrative: one that refuses cynicism, hinges on collaboration, and roots itself in the audacity of youth. This first graduating class has shown that when young people are given support, structure, and community, they rise, and not only with solutions, but with solidarity.
As the Academy looks ahead to its next cohort, the message from these young changemakers is unmistakably clear: you don’t need to have everything figured out to begin. You only need to start.
Vision to Action Project winners:
1st Place: Marcella Azuekwu; Lagos Menstrual Dignity Project
2nd Place: Shahed Anan Sajeeeb; Seed to Success Project
3rd Place: Tumiso Mathenge; Girl to Girl Uwezo project
Full class:
Abby Patterson
Ana Lucero Loaiza Garcia
Annick Niyubahwe Uwacu
Anoushka Shyam
Audrianna Honda
Camila Rimoldi Ibanez
Carla Monté
Celeste Garfias
Charity Labija
Dante Martinez de Loera
Emaan Danish Khan
Eve Ang
Fatimah Amer
Gasore Corene Turinumugisha
Hannah Rosenfeld
Henry Nnamene
Jahswill Kalu
Kayle Maxfield
Marcella Azuekwu
Maria Adara Bukchinella Carreon
Maryam Liaquat
Michael Omondi
Mubarak Qambi
Nathaniel Molang
Nina Alejandra Poot Esteban
Omar Emam
Rahul Anand
Robyn Lam
Rubaiya Shanjidah
Saide Zülal Taşlıyol
Selina Zhang
Shahed Anan Sajeeb
Sonia Violante Ptasznik
Tumiso Mathenge
Valery Corayma Huaranga Rosas
Victoria James
Victory Ganyo
Yesenia Ochoa Acevedo
Read other articles by Jacob Weissman
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Brilliant! Kudos to these participants who showed up, and are moving us all forward. Your progress in your education and in your actions gives us hope.