EDUCATION SOLUTION
SERVICE CHANGE
ELEVATING
THE VOICES
THAT MATTER
We believe the passion and commitment demonstrated by our youth to create a better world is a key component to advancing the agroecological movement. WAEA is positioned to drive the necessary levels of transition needed in production practices, food processing, consumer habits, nutrition security, food sovereignty that in turn repairs our climate.
We view our youth as critical participants in elevating this mission, shaping global policies, serving as the voice of hope, and proving there is in fact a better way that can and will feed the world while saving our planet.
THE PROGRAM
The WAEA Youth Ambassador Program is uniting high school and college students from across the globe to embrace differences, promote mutual cross-cultural respect and understanding, enhance leadership skills, and work alongside the WAEA team to influence change for a better and brighter future in their collective communities. WAEA values and listens to the pleas the young are echoing around the globe as it relates to the health of all that inhabit Mother Earth as it is ultimately their world to heal and inherit.
In response, we have created a platform to rebuild a food culture that is embodied in sound agroecological principles. We are inviting you to join this movement as either a Youth Ambassador or participant in a local chapter as they become available in your area.
Our Youth Ambassador Program collaboration will expediate both the understanding and deployment of agroecological solutions to transform our food system throughout the lands as it prepares our youth to bring the message and the solution forward into their collective comunities.
PROGRAM
GOALS
Education
Solutions
Service
Change
Listening and embracing the power of the next generation of leaders and advocates who are echoing concerns for a future that allows them to work within economies that are just and live in an age where social purpose that includes a healthy environment has a metric value and is factored into the “success” equation.
The World AgroEcology Youth Ambassador program will facilitate creative thought, public service, leadership, and an entrepreneurial-can-do-attitude.
- To develop the leaders of today and tomorrow who have a strong sense of civic responsibility, a commitment to just community development, an awareness of current & global issues that impact our food system and our planet, and strong interpersonal and entrepreneurial skills;
- To foster relationships and desire for cross-cultural respect and understanding among youth from different ethnic, religious, and national groups; and
- To promote collaboration among the generations, political ideologies and different needs among cultures and nations to achieve a collective goal of addressing inequalities, meet the feed the world challenges and implement real solutions that will solve our climate crisis.
Are you interested
in the WAEA Youth
Ambassador Program?
We offer opportunities for youth around the globe. For more information and to begin the application process.
One of your first initiatives will help us create a platform of connectivity for our youth that brings awareness and participation worldwide through the development of our social media platform!
To be part of this exciting and impactful initiative – apply! Do not wait another day to be the change in the world.
Your safety and security it our top priority so we will monitor closely when it is safe to cross-border travel once again. Until then, we cannot wait to meet our first visionary class on Zoom.
Application
Process Now
Open until
August 1, 2021
Announcement
of New Class
will be made on
August 30, 2021
Our first Youth
Ambassador Class
Sunday, september 5th, 2021
WAEA YOUTH
mentors
WAEA YOUTH
AMBASSADOR MENTOR
Lafayette, Indiana
Haiyan Li
Haiyan Li is a doctoral candidate in Literacy and Language Development in the College of Education at Purdue University. She is also an on-leave associate professor in the College of Foreign Languages at North China Electric Power University, China. She has taught a variety of English language courses for graduates, undergraduates, and K-12 levels in China for 20 years. In addition, she was a co-founder of an international online education company, bringing hundreds of young Chinese students for cross-cultural-exchange programs into the United States from 2014-2017.
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As a mother of a transnational teenager, she is passionate about mentoring emergent bilingual students and implementing multicultural and translingual pedagogy in linguistically diverse classrooms. She has presented at highly regarded international, national, and regional conferences about multilingual students’ literacy instructions and their home literacy practices. She also has written numerous publications with citations about multilingual and multiliteracies practices.
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WAEA YOUTH
AMBASSADOR MENTOR
Fermo, Italy
Luigi Edoardo
Cicconi
Luigi Edoardo Cicconi holds a technical diploma in International Business and Master’s in International Business Development and an additional Masters in Administration, Financial Management and Control. He currently serves as the Business Manager at Self Globe headquarters in southern Italy for the United States, Canada and Middle Eastern markets. It was through this role that he began working closely with Palindromes Inc. on how to modify the modular processing in a manner that would be a fit for the production and consumer demands in the United States and Canada.
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Prior to his role at Self Globe, Eduardo formed his own company that focused seed production and olive oil as well as served as a buyer an Italian-based import/export company. Born and raised in Fermo, Italy, he has had a deep appreciation since childhood for Mother Nature where the outdoors was his perpetual playground. He spends his free time hiking, traveling, and experiencing the local foods and cultures and is eager to begin traveling once again.
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WAEA YOUTH
AMBASSADOR
WAEA YOUTH
AMBASSADOR CHAIRWOMAN
Gujarat, India
Shriya Manishkumar
Mehta
Shriya Manishkumar Mehta resides in Gujarat, India where she is finishing her 12th grade with plans to further her studies in international relations and political science. With her deep passion for humanity, the planet and to bring equality to the people, Shriya has from an early age interfaced with national and international leaders with hopes to one day work for an influential world organization such as the United Nations where she was blessed to visit the offices in New York.
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An Impactful
Role that
Matters
The role of Youth Ambassadors will be to advocate for transformative change in how the entire food supply chain – from production through consumption – can be part of the environmental solution as opposed to a problem while proving a different way is possible to address global hunger and nutrition. The best part it allows for just economic progress around the world.
As a youth ambassador you will
serve as a key voice at
the drawing board that will:
Create our social media platform, messaging and
following.
Educate peers as well as political and business
leaders in your collective communities on what it agroecology and food sovereignty.
Develop materials to distribute for the promotion and education of agroecology that will be used to advance academic curriculum, business and workforce training and your collective domestic and international policy.
Monthly zoom meetings and hangouts with fellow youth ambassadors and an international retreat once the world is ready for in-person gatherings.
Build your resume through something that fuels
your passion and brings change that matters
while building a lifelong network and friendship
of likeminded global leaders. and
Invest in a future that enhances the qualities,
skills and character need to establish subsequent
generations of global advocates.
Why WAEA Youth
Ambassadors
It is our honor to invite individuals with diverse backgrounds and nationalities to apply for this program.
The effects of agroecological farming methods have the largest impact on younger and future generations. The yearly activity of farming and how it is practiced today will determine the food systems of tomorrow. Therefore, it is imperative that our work to advance this movement includes those with the largest investment in its outcome.
Empowering younger generations is vital to establishing vibrant and prosperous communities. This is especially relevant in our rural regions across the globe, where we are witnessing an exodus of young people to city centers. The deserting of these small communities threatens a way of life and impact the essential framework to our food supply. Together, we can reverse this trend and revitalize these regions by restoring their quality of life while addressing nutrition and food insecurity and allowing each of our homelands to solve the challenges with food sovereignty. It is through agroecology that we can and meet our feed the world challenges and reverse the impacts that industrialized agriculture has had on our climate.
As we advocate for the sustainable raising of crops and livestock, the engagement of our youth is critical to cultivate a sustainable future for humanity and advances the agroecology movement for generations to come. The participants in the program will work singularly and cooperatively to create the curriculum for promoting and education how agroecology is key for a viable coexistence between humans and nature. We will collectively work through how to influence and build societies and landscapes with localized and diverse food systems designed to promote a good, just and equitable life – what may in Latin America call buen vivir.
After the completion of the curriculum creation, our Youth Ambassadors will help us connect food, land, and cultures to create networks that share and coordinate activities across our representative regions. Our program will be held through a series of exciting, informative, and inspirational zoom meetings. However, we look forward to the time when cross-boarder travel is permitted to hold our annual meeting in-person! The first meeting location has been pre-selected at the home of our base operations in Washington DC with in-country travel to New York City and one of our selected demonstration production sites in the Midwestern United States.
It is our honor to invite individuals with diverse backgrounds and nationalities to apply for this program. WAEA has officially began accepting applications for the 2021-2022 Youth Ambassador Program.
We look forward to working with our first class of leaders that are eager to being promoting agroecology principles worldwide. Our sincere thank you for your interest and good luck in becoming a visionary severing in the first WAEA Youth Ambassador class.
Again, to become an applicant for consideration to our first class of leaders for our Global Youth Ambassador program Click here for High School Applicants or Click here for College Applicants for the application packet.
We encourage involvement in other ways outside of the Youth Ambassador program as well. Please subscribe for important updates and follow up on social. Soon we will be having local chapters span the globe so be watching for updates to become more involvement in your local area.
Starting a Local High School or Collegiate Youth Chapter
You do not have to be serving as a Youth Ambassador to start a World AgroEcology Alliance Youth Chapter in your area. If you have an interest in starting a high school or collegiate chapter, please contact us to discuss how you can become more involved and help spread the message and the movement!