[00:00:11.940] – Speaker 2
Well, hey, I’m Chris Tompkins. Welcome to the Shaping Our World podcast, where we spark conversations that will help you understand and inspire the young people in your life. Each episode, we sit down with leading voices and share resources you can use to go deeper into the world of youth today. Today, we’re joined by Steve Joneslee. For the past 15 years, Steve has tackled some of the planet’s biggest challenges: sustainable development, climate change, and meaningful youth engagement, serving clients like the United Nations, national governments, foundations, and nonprofits. At just 16, he began advocating for children’s rights with UNICEF. And in 2020 and 2021, he led the UN’s Major Group for children and youth. Steve also founded the charity Finance, Engage, Sustain, which empowers youth to create a more inclusive, fair, prosperous, and sustainable future. He holds the Certified Fundraising Executive designation and has been honoured with Canada’s Clean 16 and Clean 50 Awards for Environmental Leadership. Steve is driven by a belief that young people aren’t just future leaders. They’re catalysts for change right now. I’m so excited for this conversation because Steve couples big picture strategy with practical ways families, educators, communities can empower youth to shape a more sustainable world today.
[00:01:33.430] – Speaker 2
Let’s dive into the conversation with Steve. Before we meet our guest, a quick word about an opportunity at Muskoka Woods. Starting as a staff member here, I found it to be more than just a job. I discovered a pathway to personal and professional growth. We are committed to intentional staff development, providing training, and building a network that can propel your career forward. Imagine working where you’re nurtured to grow with access to amazing facilities and staff care events. If you’re seeking a role that prepares you for what’s next, visit jobs.muskokawoods.com for more details. Now, let’s get into the heart of our show. Steve, it’s great to have you.
[00:02:20.520] – Speaker 1
Thanks so much for having me.
[00:02:21.920] – Speaker 2
Yeah, I’m looking forward to this conversation. As we get into the topics that I’m really looking forward to talking about, we love to get to know you a little bit better. Tell us a little bit about you. What shaped your world when you were growing up? What were the big influences as you were a child, as a teenager?
[00:02:40.980] – Speaker 1
Well, a pleasure to be on this podcast. I know Muskoka Woods is a very influential and leading voice in this area. My wife and my church go to Muskoka Woods, so I’ve been hearing about it, and it’s a pleasure to be here. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I was born and raised in South Korea, and then I came to London, Ontario for high school. And as all kids do when they first move to a new place, you don’t know the language, the culture. And I didn’t have a friend for about a year. And then some guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to join the team for something. And I was like, yes, I’ll be your friend. We remained friends. I was his best man. He was my best man. And the friendship continues. And it turns out that team was a UNICEF competition to send children to the G8 summit, now the G7. And we actually won that year. And that summer, I was in Italy shaking hands with Obama and Harper and Putin and all the world leaders and really turned my life upside down.
[00:03:43.600] – Speaker 1
I tell young people when I tell my story that this is not really a replicable story trying to mimic exactly that moment. But there was a really good opportunity that came to me at a young age, and it had a huge influence on me. One of the topics at the Jade Summit in 2009 was on environment, water, climate, and that’s what really drew my interest. They were also talking about the financial crisis of the time, the HIV/AIDS, on generic drugs for intellectual property rights, and a host of topics that went over my head, didn’t really understand them. But environment, water, that made sense. So that’s where my interest went to. And then the year after, there was the COP 15, the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, that was supposed to be the Paris Agreement that had not succeeded. And because I was a very young person who had gotten into a connexion with UNICEF, I got to go to that as well. And then that continued to lead me in the UN circles since I was aged 16. So I spent time doing that for a number of years, travelling around the world, going to all the big conferences conferences, and I’m speaking and listening.
[00:05:02.760] – Speaker 1
And it occurred to me at one point, this was 2012, in Rio, in Brazil, there was a UN conference on sustainable development. And by this point, I’m running around in suit and briefcase looking like a kid in an adult suit and talking about all kinds of things. And there was a protest by young people, Indigenous people, blocking one of the pavilions I was supposed to go in for a negotiation session. And I didn’t have a smartphone at the time. There’s no Wi-Fi reaching outside. And I was just standing there for well over half an hour under the sun and just waiting, when will these young people shut up and move out so I can go in and do the actual important stuff? And it occurred to me, why am I here doing this? What real impact is this having? And I’m not trying to undermine the importance of young people’s participation in decision making processes, but am I doing this for me or am I doing this for the actual impact of what’s being done? And after all the thinking, I realised this is a self-glorifying process where I’m really doing it for me because I love the idea of going around the world and meeting important people.
[00:06:18.700] – Speaker 1
And I figured I need to do stuff back at home on the ground as well. So I came back home to Toronto. And by this time, I was in university. So I came back to Toronto and started just talking to my friends and their friends and classes and schools. And over the years, it turned into a national nonprofit. And I spent several years going to 500 schools in 400 towns all across the country, every 338 ridings in all the province and territories, talking to young people, listening to them, launching new local community projects around how can we shape our future. There’s all these exponential financial trends that are going on around the world, not just on sustainability, but on technology, and how can our generation prepare ourselves with the skills necessary to meet that future. So we did that for a number of years. Covid came around. I went back to the UN for a year or so. And then for the last few years, I’ve been helping other organisations launch new initiatives themselves. I got married, and that’s where I am at now.
[00:07:28.300] – Speaker 2
I can’t wait to get into all this in more detail. But when you’re not out trying to shape the world, tell us a little bit about you. What are you interested in? What are your hobbies? What do you do for fun?
[00:07:40.680] – Speaker 1
I love making stuff. I love creating. I used to play the clarinet. I went to university for clarinet performance and then quickly realised that’s not where my talents are. Some natural talents are required for stuff, and there were other people way more naturally talented than me at the clarinet. But I love creating music with people. I love being in an ensemble setting and listening to others, ripping off. And so I love doing that. Then when I stopped playing the clarinet, I got into cooking. So I love cooking and baking, trying new recipes, getting new ingredients, or writing stuff, creating new initiatives, anything that has to do with getting a new idea, getting excited, getting others excited, and sharing all of that. That’s what I love doing.
[00:08:36.680] – Speaker 2
That’s amazing. Well, let’s get into some of the details. After COVID in 2020, 2021, you went back to the United Nations. You were elected to lead the major group for children and youth there representing children and youth and sustainable development policy processes. Can you tell us a little bit about why you’re so passionate involving youth in sustainable development? You gave us a bit of that intro, but where’s the sustainability heart from and engaging youth in that?
[00:09:07.780] – Speaker 1
Yeah. So in any decision making process, there’s… Well, in any setting, there’s power at play. And Martin Luther King’s definition of power is my favourite, where he says it’s really the ability to achieve purpose and influence effect change. And young people don’t have the power to influence change in these decision making settings. And then young people’s interests don’t get reflected in those decisions. Indigenous people in, I guess, more central North America, they talk about how whenever they have meetings, they’ll have an empty chair representing the next seven generations. And people talk about how it’s always a good idea to have a child or a baby in a on decision making room when they’re talking about long term things. And young people’s interests are rarely about what’s going to affect me today. It’s about what’s going to affect me and others for decades to come. And young people having the power to be in those places, listen to what is going on, and be able to speak into that to influence that change, I think is extremely important.
[00:10:28.920] – Speaker 2
You You talked about founding a nonprofit, and it’s called Finance, Engage, Sustain, a youth-led Canadian charity that empowers youth to create a more inclusive, fair, prosperous, and sustainable future. So all those ideas you talked about, you’re putting that into practise. And for this, you mentioned it, but some more details. You logged 160,000 kilometres between 2017 to 2019, visiting 500 schools, meeting 100,000 students. So you’ve had a front row seat at Canadian Young People in that time period. And I know your work probably keeps you connected. So what did that road trip teach you about young people today, the hopes, the hurdles, just who they are, what they’re interested in. Tell us a little bit about what you gleaned from that experience about young people themselves.
[00:11:22.720] – Speaker 1
Yeah, I will preface by saying the timeline is up to 2019, so 2019, December. So this is pre-COVID. Covid did change a lot of things, but some universal truths about where young people are today, some that still applies. I spent a majority of my time in rural and northern parts of the country. I found that the cities, the urban settings, do have access to speakers like me or educational programmes that I was bringing, but not so much in rural parts. So that’s why locked so many hours and kilometres driving to northern parts. I would say a couple of things about where young people were at around that time, which I believe is still the case, is one, young people want to have power. I mean power in the sense that I described earlier to have agency. Agency that I matter and what I will matter in shaping my future. That belief and that promise is really important. Some people can call that hope, some people can call that confidence about the future. I’m calling it power and agency. But the idea that whatever I dream up in my mind and put my effort today will translate into some material reward in the future, that being realised and the the fact that I have agency over that, that I am able to influence that, I can shape my own future, that’s really important.
[00:13:07.280] – Speaker 1
And young people keep trying to figure out, if that’s possible, how much effort needs to be put in. They test the boundaries of what that looks like in the given context that they’re in. And the more rural and remote that they’re in, that world is a bit smaller than if you were in big cities like Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver. So I think young people people try to find that ability of agency. How much influence can I have? How much effort does that require? What does that look like? And they’re testing that out. And if they’ve tried a few times and they see that my agency, the efforts don’t really pay out, that’s when they try to find, Okay, this doesn’t matter. I’m just going to try looking for other things than try to shape my own future because it didn’t work.
[00:13:56.220] – Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. It’s interesting you talk about that because I think a lot of the research and a lot of the media stuff points to Gen Z and younger kids being very stressed out, anxiety being a big part of their world. But what they often don’t share is that this generation is way more socially conscious, politically active. Like you said, they want to advocate for change. They are more likely than previous generations to prioritise their own well-being and think about, like you said, agency around that. And so I do I think that’s something encouraging, and you’ve highlighted that. Maybe just before we move on, you mentioned that pre-COVID and that continued. Is there anything that you’re seeing in young people? How has the pandemic… Because that was them there, and we know that the pandemic was a major disrupter for so many things, including where young people are at with a lot of metrics and parts of their lives. Anything that you glean from your work today that maybe has changed or just worth noting about kids today in 2025 as we record this?
[00:15:06.780] – Speaker 1
I think the fundamental skills of communication, just socialisation, all of that was severely disrupted. So I’m not undermining the impact that it had, and it will have lasting impact in how we do things. That will change, and there’s no question about that. But I really want to stress that the solution Solution is for young people to exercise their agency to try things and see the fruits of that come out. And maybe young people need to see the fruits of that being born quicker than previous generations for them to not give up on the fact that they have power to make change because they’ve tried for the last several years and it didn’t really pan out. And for young people’s life, three years is eternity. Four years is the entire lifespan of high school or teenage, and that’s your entire life. So just a few years is a really, really long period of time. I was told that the entire your 30s to 50s feels like four years when you’re a teenager. And it is when you’re in that life stage. So I’m not undermining the impact of that. But if the The antidote really is to provide young people opportunities to exercise that change-making power.
[00:16:39.540] – Speaker 1
And while young people, because we’re so connected with the Internet to around the world and all the positives and negatives that’s going on all over the world, that ability to test my agency can happen at a very, very local context. And that’s what gives me the belief that if I can make this tiny difference with my friends, with my family, with my neighbours, then maybe that can translate all the way around the world as well.
[00:17:10.120] – Speaker 2
As we’re talking, I know that’s definitely a focus for you. Fes is youth led by design. And as young people get involved in sustainable initiatives, maybe let’s start by hearing from you, why do you think it’s crucial that young people lead, not just participate in sustainable initiatives or things that they’re really passionate about?
[00:17:35.360] – Speaker 1
I love that question. It’s leadership, partnership, being led. All of these things need to happen together. And I think the reason why we focus so much on youth leadership is because in comparison to being partners or being led, like followers, young people are just not given the opportunity to lead. Pretty much ever. Young people are given the opportunity to provide their opinion at best. But how often do we actually give the reins of decision-making power and the consequences of that decision to young people? And I think That’s what young people are looking for. They don’t want to be shielded from the consequences of their decisions. They want the ability to make the decision, see how it plays out, bear the fruit of it and the consequences, and be able to lead.
[00:18:30.500] – Speaker 2
That’s really good. As you were going around talking to students on your trip, a lot of students launched local sustainability projects coming out, and you probably heard from them. What patterns or success factors have you noticed in youth-led projects that really take off? What distinguishes youth-led projects like this versus just other initiatives that are out there? What’s the differential for Fantastic question.
[00:19:02.100] – Speaker 1
So if we’re looking at just the pure impact of a project led by a young person versus an adult, most of the time, the adult project is going to do better. It should. The adults have been on the planet much longer. They have the education, the skills, the experiences, network.
[00:19:21.780] – Speaker 2
Access to resources that young people maybe don’t have. Yeah.
[00:19:24.990] – Speaker 1
Yeah. So obviously, the adults will and should yield better results. So it’s not just about the pure results. It’s young people having that opportunity to build their skills, to try them out. It’s investment into the future capacity of the generation. And it’s not to say that young people’s participation is not important, that young people participating with the adults, with other stakeholders, having a diverse decision-making group at the table, that’s what overall enhances the quality of the decisions, and that can also invest in young people at the same time. But on the local community level, this is why it was going on about the agency part so much that especially in smaller communities, when young people can get together and they plan a project that will benefit not just themselves, but their community, their neighbours, their parents, their uncles, and it actually pays out that it does make a positive difference that completely changes young people’s lives. And it’s not just the next few years. It really does change the trajectory of their lives. And even if they go wayward at some point, they remember back to those moments.
[00:20:43.840] – Speaker 2
It’s true. A couple of thoughts. One, I’ve heard someone say, when the Girl Guides show up, always buy their cookies because it shows them that their efforts can produce fruit and it can encourage them beyond the $5 for the cookies, even if you don’t really want them, right? Like giving them some yeses in the things that they’re taking the courage to step out in at a young age can do so much for them, which in turn benefits our society.
[00:21:11.780] – Speaker 1
Yeah. And I want to add that Young people know how to make decisions. It’s just they make decisions in different ways that make sense for them. A bit of, I guess, a rabbit hole context is that the current modern society, Western modern society is built on Western philosophy and legal concepts that if I have a conscious ability to make a decision and bear the consequences of that decision, I’m a full functioning adult. And if I can’t do that, then I’m incapacitated. So that could mean medically, that could mean biologically, it could mean I’m not a full adult, I’m a teenager, I’m a child. So it’s not a fully developed human who can think straight, so can’t make legal decisions. That’s why a lot of our stuff is by 18 years old, that’s when we believe, developmentally, on average, people have reached that age where they can make decision and bear the consequences of that decision themselves. But it doesn’t mean children don’t know how to make decisions. It’s just they arrive at decisions in very different ways than the setup that we’ve created in the society. There’s a very interesting experience Well, I say experiment because it’s rare, but the United Nations Secretary General’s envoy on Violence Against Children got together young people from all around the world, about 30 of them, and put them together for about two weeks, ages five all the way to teenagers, and got them to work on the same decision-making processes that the adults were going through about Violence Against Children.
[00:22:58.980] – Speaker 1
And they came up with very good solutions at the end. But the way they achieve that, the process of it was completely different than the setups that we’ve created as adults. This is why giving that leadership capacity to young people, not just saying, why don’t you tell us about this one piece and we’ll make the decisions on how to execute your vision, but giving the entire range to young people and say, Do what you want to do in the way you want to do it. And then this is The second piece that I want to say to your original question of what paid off, and this is a shorter one, is when the teachers and the parents were cheerleading supporters. That’s really important, that young people get them to do what they want to do in the way they want to do it, and that the parents and teachers are cheerleaders and supporters in helping them achieve that.
[00:23:54.780] – Speaker 2
Okay, so I’m going to come back to both of those things in a second, but just some commentary back You talked about adults being able to lead things and be successful because of all of the things that they have, resources, knowledge, information. But the other thing they have is a lot of failure and sometimes potentially a long history of learning what works and only doing it that way. Sometimes as adults, we can get jaded as well. I think one of the gifts young people can bring to initiatives like this or projects is that hopeful optimism. That they actually can see… It’s that age-old story about the truck that gets stuck under the bridge and they can’t figure out how to unstuck it. It’s the child that’s at the ground level that says, Why don’t you just let the air out of the tyres? And when we have a different perspective, and young people, with their hopeful optimism, their can do, their energy, sometimes we, as adults, get a little jaded and stuck in our decisions that we don’t actually see the solves that young people with their perspectives can bring to the table. I think that’s another thing why sometimes these initiatives can be really successful when they’re young people led, because they have hoped that they can make a difference, where sometimes as adults, we’re like, Well, we’ve tried for so long and we haven’t really made a dent here.
[00:25:19.680] – Speaker 2
We can give up a bit, right?
[00:25:22.980] – Speaker 1
Yeah. Young people definitely bring that fresh perspective, something the adults haven’t done. But sometimes it’s also to remind them something that the adults had done before, but the world has changed. If we want to go with a truck example, it turns out the bridge was already lifted or the grounds have changed or they think they’re stuck, but they have tried something in the past that didn’t work. So they’re like, we’re not going to do that again. Well, the world has changed since then.
[00:25:52.400] – Speaker 2
So true. Okay. So I want to get back to you. You talked about all this stuff about young people and then as adults. So you talked about being cheerleaders and encouraging them. I want to get to what can we, based on all this stuff you just talked about, what can we do as parents to come alongside kids and be part of the global stage? You’ve advised organisations as big as the UN and as small as local student clubs. What’s some things you’ve learned that parents, teachers, community leaders can take from that and put into practise in their own backyards, their families, their communities, their schools?
[00:26:32.320] – Speaker 1
I’m not a parent myself, so I won’t talk about it from that perspective. But generally, an adult in a community cheering on for young people in that community. And that could be in your own family, it could be your neighbours or school. So I’ll speak from that perspective. Allowing young people not just this one specific child that all the adults find to be the best quote, unquote, leader. It’s usually the kids who conform to the culture and the behaviour of adults best that adults find to be the leader. But there’s generally a few kids that all the other kids like and follow and look up to them and will respect what they have to say. You want to find those kids and get that kid or that child to listen to other young people. And I think encouraging them to go consult, big words of consulting, but really talk to and listen to your friends and peers. That builds consensus in the community. That builds momentum. That builds almost a social licence for the community to move forward in the same direction. And then you want to help them, support them, and say, what do you guys want to do?
[00:27:49.920] – Speaker 1
And how do you want to do it? And you can provide some advice and opinions if they ask, but let them figure it out in their own way. Let them make mistakes. Let them try different things. This is harder for adults because based on the society we’ve created, at the end of the day, the adults bear the consequences of those decisions. If the kids do something, the parents are liable at the end. The organisation is liable, the school is liable. So when adults are putting guardrails around the kids, you’re really putting guardrails to minimise your own liability. And is that a fair society we’ve created? That’s a whole different conversation.
[00:28:35.460] – Speaker 2
Yeah, we could have a whole other podcast episode on that. Right.
[00:28:38.780] – Speaker 1
But the reality today is it will cost you to allow young people to try those things, what they want to do in their own way to let them make mistakes, let them try things out. It will cost. And it’s not like adults don’t bear consequences or cost themselves. Look at governments, look at companies, look at any organisations. They try things. There’s cost to doing bad decisions or not the best decisions, and we live with it. And the same thing, young people need to be afforded those opportunities.
[00:29:13.340] – Speaker 2
And that is something I know just from the research and conversations that our generation of adults do struggle with right now isn’t just mitigating the cost to us ourselves. We also don’t want to see our kids fail. We overly protect our kids from failure or the risk in their lives. And we really want… It’s the bumpers in bowling, right? We don’t want kids to ever have to go into the gutter. I guess my point is it isn’t just for our own liability on the outcome. It’s also we really want to protect our kids. Sometimes at the cost of them actually trying and failing safely and learning from their mistakes or seeing something be successful that they weren’t sure about, that if we had put the brakes on, we never would have let it go and go, Oh, that actually did work. You mentioned you’re not a parent. I am. One of the things I can jump back in, and what I loved about what you said is just around young people being decision-makers. I think sometimes, to your point earlier, we can feel that our kids aren’t as good at making decisions as we are, and in some of them that might be true, but they have the ability to make some good decisions.
[00:30:30.820] – Speaker 2
And how do we involve young people in decision making on things that really matter and particularly matter to them? In a family unit, what the family does, some of the values in the family, I think it sometimes is It’s really easy for parents to say, Well, this is how we operate. Well, have we asked our kids what they think about that? Have we asked for their perspective on that? And so we’re planning a big vacation. Have we asked our kids what they think, what they would like to do? I think including young people in decision-making is on all levels. In the education world, having students participate in their own learning and how it’s structured and what outcomes look like, have a voice, be able to make some critical decisions, I think is really important for the outcomes. I think that’s one thing I would circle back to. I do want to talk about some of the things that you’re seeing in what young people are interested in before we get into a couple of topics and wrap up our conversation, which has already been so invigorating. As you’ve gone out and worked with youth-led initiatives, what are the things that young people today are really interested in?
[00:31:39.800] – Speaker 2
Where are they wanting to press in on being change makers? What are they looking at their world and going, Man, I wish we could do something about that? Are there emerging topics that today’s generation of kids are really involved and interested in? Do you have a couple of success stories that you’ve heard that you’ve been a part of the student-led initiatives and around how they’re actually bringing about change in communities?
[00:32:06.540] – Speaker 1
Yeah, I think the topics change with the changing times. Right now, environment and sustainability is a huge focus. I think two or three decades ago, it was about civil rights, it was about conscription, and it depends on cultures and histories. But the common that tied all the young people that I’ve worked with in the past decade is they want to help people they know. They want to see how their friends, how their families, how their community, their neighbours were helped, that they were cared for, that they were respected, that they were loved. If they can contribute in some way to doing that, and they can see, I was a part of that project, and it helped my friend, it helped this person better, feel better, do better. That’s what brings people together. And sometimes because as a young person, I don’t know how I can help the person next door. But I see all this news and information and strategies about what’s happening in a different part of the world. It feels like I have more agency in what to do with that than how to help my next door neighbour because I know nothing about that neighbour.
[00:33:29.680] – Speaker 1
So So it gives you almost an illusion that I can do something about something so far away because there’s so much more information given to me about it. So it really, for a lot of young people, they want to help people around them. They want to have been involved in positive ways to care and respect and in loving ways to their neighbours.
[00:33:55.240] – Speaker 2
That would be true whether you’re in… Because you’ve been everywhere across Canada, and the United Nations. Is that true rural versus urban? That’s what I love about that. It’s like there can be a commonality there no matter where you live.
[00:34:12.020] – Speaker 1
Right. Yeah. And it really is universal. I’ve been to refugee camps in Middle East. I’ve been to slums in Brazil. I’ve been all around the world in contexts that young people are at from children, teenagers, young adults. And fundamentally, the universal human condition that gives us a direction forward is, how can I love my neighbour? How can I love my neighbour in ways that I can see that this is paying off, that it is materially making a difference in my neighbor’s life, that they are doing better, they’re feeling better, that their relationships are better? That’s what propels people forward, young people or old.
[00:34:52.000] – Speaker 2
Yeah. I love that because when you think about some of these things, like you said, they can seem so global and big. Some people are wired to take on the whole world thing. But I think if we think about how we can be advocates for change, whatever that looks like, if it impacts the people in our communities that we care about the most, that’s where I think that can fuel so much of the passion behind it and the drive to really give everything we have to the things that we care about the most. I love that. When just talking about the global nature of some of these issues and differences and generational things, I think you talked about the environment being one that I think when I was growing up, I don’t remember many people talking about climate change and the environment and things like that. If they were, I wasn’t super interested in it. But that’s a topic I know that has young people today are much more interested in than previous generations. And so I know for me, because I didn’t grow up with that, it can feel like an overwhelming topic. What strategies, perspectives do you bring to stay resilient, to keep working in the climate change world?
[00:36:12.140] – Speaker 2
And how can parents help their climate concerns kids, stick with it and keep involved?
[00:36:19.900] – Speaker 1
I have so much compassion and grief around answering that question for myself and for so many young people that I’ve worked with. It’s a fear response of uncertainty about the future. And when you really have no idea how it’s going to play out and all the cards seem to be stacked against you, some people freeze, some people fight, some people flee. It’s a host of different reactions, but they’re reactions. And what you want to do is accept the reality, grieve sufficiently. You need to grieve about the reality of the suffering and pain in this world, and then you need to act. And the precondition for that action is you need to believe you have agency, that what I do about it will translate to something. And that is what needs to be reminded to young people. Environmentists and scientists have long said, we have 10 years left until we reach the tipping point, 15 years, 20 years. Yeah, those are the years if we do nothing differently from today. If we do exactly the same thing today for the next 20 years, then we will reach the tipping point, or five years, or seven years, different tipping points for different ecosystems.
[00:37:51.400] – Speaker 1
But that should give us then hope that we must do things differently in order to extend that timeline and change the conditions, and what can I do to extend that timeline? And we’re not really encouraged to think about that. We’re not encouraged to look at how can I participate in systems that will bring about that change? How can I participate in communities that will bring about this change? Individual actions will help, but it only goes so far. You need to be a part of larger communities where you can influence them to move in a different direction. That always comes from individuals.
[00:38:29.600] – Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s That’s good. As I’m listening to this, I’m wondering, Steve, if you can, for someone like me who I follow the news, I try to keep relevant. I think sometimes it can be discouraging to go, what’s accurate? What’s not accurate? What’s really happening when it comes to the environment and climate change? Maybe there’s a parent listening whose kid is really involved, but they don’t know a lot. Where could you point me or them to just even prelimminarily start the deep dive into into what’s really happening and what? So back to that, like, okay, I’m open. What can I do? Where would I start to find out more info on that?
[00:39:09.480] – Speaker 1
Finding a true, real, accurate information is becoming an art and science that’s more difficult day by day on any topic.
[00:39:19.400] – Speaker 2
Sorry for putting you on the spot with that. No, no, no.
[00:39:22.040] – Speaker 1
But especially when there’s a strong interest that have something to benefit from a particular thing true or not, there is going to be a lot of more noise around that topic, whether it’s on energy, whether it’s on certain political issues, any of those things. So that’s going to be inherently harder. What I will say is, especially as parents or adults in children’s lives, instead of trying to vet and ascertain which information is accurate and try to feed it to the children or try to stop them from accessing processing certain information, try to get them to verify information around them that they can do something about. International Energy Agency has reported, how is that going to help you make a difference today. But if you know something about what’s happening at your school, your neighbours, your direct community, that’s something you can literally go and verify it yourself and try to do something about it. And within your own family, within your own house, even in your own room, those things, the way we make those decisions, the way we bring about that change, the way we experience the reward of having put in the effort and see the change happen, that can translate into much more larger systems later on.
[00:40:47.400] – Speaker 1
But you got to see that in the first beginning in your local context.
[00:40:52.560] – Speaker 2
You’ve done this. You’ve worked with young people that takes this maybe idea or passion or interest into action from informally to just making change in their world around them to starting youth-led organisations or initiatives. What would you say to parents who their kids or the kids around them that are interested and passionate but are just not sure what to do next? Are there resources, books, online communities, programmes that parents could point their kids or encourage them to get involved to take this beginning passion into some form of action?
[00:41:34.340] – Speaker 1
That’s a very good one. Depending on the topic, depending on the interest in the community, those resources will be quite different. What I will say is if this child has an interest, they want to see some change, they just don’t know how to do it or what needs to be done about it, look for one more person who shares that. Just one more person who who shares that. And then now two people, an entire group of people, can go look for two more people. And the more community you find in what you care about, you will inevitably, pretty soon, find resources and entire other communities who do care about it.
[00:42:19.200] – Speaker 2
It’s so practical. I love that. Find one other person. When you think back to your journey, because your journey is pretty inspiring, from moving it to London, Ontario, and those listeners who aren’t for… It’s a city, but it’s out in the middle of our province. From there to the United Nations to meeting heads of state, other than being a cheerleader, were there anything that your parents or the adults that cared about you did to really encourage you and equip you to be that young? I know, like you said, your story is not replicable, but on a different scale and level, there’s things we can do as adults. I know you mentioned cheering them on and encouraging. Is there anything else that the adults in your life that really cared about you did well to give you the courage and the insight and the drive and the persistence to do what you did?
[00:43:13.340] – Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. I mean, if I didn’t have all these, I mean, I say adults, but they’re all adults, all these mentors, teachers, supporters that came on to cheer me on in the journey, none of this would have happened. I Even in the high school example, our staff advisor who was our English teacher, it was the four of us that applied as a team and got to go. So me, my buddy, and two other people, it was the four of us. And for days, I’m talking days and days, this English teacher who was near retirement would stay with us at school building until 10, 11: 00 PM. And she would say, this is the wrong word She would bring out paper thesaurus all over the school table, and we would look for the best word that describes it, look up the definition of every word, and then we’ll complete a draught. And she’s like, this is not very good. Let’s work on it again for a next draught. We went through so many revision. And that process, this whole cheerleading and supporting is not just telling them, Oh, whatever you did is great. No, it’s really supporting them to push them on.
[00:44:28.840] – Speaker 1
I At the very beginning, the high school teacher did that. And so many other people who’ve gone ahead of me in life have encouraged me when I was about to give up so many times. They’ve come and supported me. They’ve literally, some of them have taken me into their house. She’s now my pretty much adopted grandmother. She’s a Caribbean grandma in her now 80s. And we came across each other at a conference, and she invited me to our house for soup. I went, and she’s just given me so much life advice since then. If it wasn’t for people like that, none of this would have happened.
[00:45:12.520] – Speaker 2
It’s so encouraging. And just to wrap up our conversation, it’s just inspiring to me today to remember and to think about how this generation of young people that we have today are passionate about the world they live in and hopeful for their future, and they do want to bring about change. And you’ve reminded me, and I think important for this conversation is that we play a role as cheerleaders and supporters, but also maybe the idea that young people are not just the leaders of the future, that they’re actually leaders today is something that we can take away and think about what does it look like for us to be adults, to get involved, to participate with, and to support and cheerlead on young people as they bring about change, not just for the future, but for today. I love the student-led idea of things. How do we get young people more involved in leadership roles in things that really matter. And so that’s really encouraging. What’s one piece of advice, of encouragement you just maybe want to leave to parents or other adults that care about young people who maybe feel a bit stuck or overwhelmed or unsure how to support their kids, the young people in their life that are eager to get out and change the world?
[00:46:36.780] – Speaker 2
What would you say is a final charge and encouragement to them?
[00:46:40.640] – Speaker 1
That’s a good one and a big one. When I was in Panger tongue, Nunavut, this was one of the remote flying communities. I was talking to the principal there and I asked, what is the purpose of education for somewhere like this? It’s a very remote town, a few hundred people. What does that look like? And he told me, and this really stuck with me, he said, The purpose of education here is just like anywhere else, that the students feel safe here, that the students know they’re loved, and that they are prepared to lead their own lives after this. Just letting the kids know that that’s where you’re coming from, that’s the posture of your heart, that is what makes me feel supported as a person. And especially as a young person, person, knowing that this adult, whether parent or teacher or mentor or neighbour, who is telling me that my priority, my heart, is that you feel safe, that you’re loved, and that we want you to be best prepared to lead your own life, that you have agency, you have power to make a difference, and I want to help you realise that. I don’t know how, but that’s where I’m coming from.
[00:47:56.280] – Speaker 1
How can I help you?
[00:47:57.640] – Speaker 2
What a great way to wrap this conversation. Safe, loved, prepared. That’s really encouraging. Thanks so much, Steve, for the conversation today and for all the things that you do. Man, our podcast is called Shaving Our World, and you as a guest are one who’s definitely shaping the world as a whole. So thank you for what you’re doing and your willingness to share that with us today. Really appreciate the conversation.
[00:48:22.900] – Speaker 1
Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
[00:48:26.900] – Speaker 2
Well, that’s it for today’s episode. If you found Steve Joneslee’s insights on supporting kids to be pioneers of change when it comes to sustainability, to be world-shapers, really, and want to explore more conversations like this, visit muskokawoods.com. There, you’ll find a blog post for every episode of Shaping Our World, packed with highlights, key takeaways, and a link to listen again. While you’re there, explore how Muskoka Woods is creating life-changing experiences that help young people grow in confidence, character, and connexion. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast with someone you think needs to hear it.
