Hi, it’s Richard here. I’m often blown away by how socially conscious – and collectively powerful – the youth of today are. More than ever, they’re grasping the impact they have on the future of our world, from social, economic and environmental perspectives. A great example of this is ‘We Day’ (www.weday.com / #WEDAY) which is a celebration of youth making a difference in their local and global communities. Millions of youth worldwide raised over $37,000,000 for 1000+ causes, with over 9,600,000 volunteer hours. Their ability to mobilize is evident. It’s pretty simple: involvement of youth in environmental and developmental decision-making processes is critical. It affects not only their lives today, but has implications for their futures. They provide fresh and unique perspectives that need to be considered as we all work together to make our world a better place.
This is something we strongly believe in at Sifton, which is why we wanted to involve and engage youth perspectives as we worked to develop West5, which was then unnamed. For four months in 2014, one of our partners, S2E, engaged 90 individuals from 10 partner groups worked together to prepare the project proposal for our community, including students from 11 universities – and mainly from Ryerson. Working with Alan Fung, a mechanical and industrial engineering professor at Ryerson, they researched sustainable energy options in four-month internships. Some were directly involved in the design of certain buildings.
It was truly inspiring to see how motivated the students were. They were genuinely excited by the process, and seemed to fully comprehend the benefit that ideas such as electric cars, recycling rainwater and designing public spaces optimized for walking and greenery can have on our lives. We see youths as agents of change, who will help us sustain the environment and create awareness among the whole human population. Ultimately, they are the future of our planet.
