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Season 2 episode 8 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview Nell, Martha and Naomi from Youth 4 Climate Leeds. We talk about shifting tactics from just strikes, working in solidarity with other groups, “de-diversification”, and navigating being a group during a pandemic!
“Both the cause and the effects of climate change is interlinked with racial justice”
– Nell“There is sometimes an ethic within activist circles like, ‘I can change the world by myself.’ And then you end up just taking on so much work and it just becomes ridiculous. Like, I remember like, it must have been early 2020 and I was going to three meetings a week all in different places”
– Martha
Show notes, links
Youth 4 Climate Leeds Twitter (@yleedsuk), Instagram (@youth4climate_leeds) and Facebook. You can find links to school strike groups across the country on the UK Student Climate Network website.
We now have a Patreon! Please help keep the podcast going, at patreon.com/resistrenew. If not, there’s always the classic ways to support: like, share, and subscribe!
Transcript
ALI
This is Resist Renew,
KATHERINE
the UK based podcast about social movements,
SAMI
what we’re fighting for, why and how it all happens.
ALI
The hosts of the show are
KATHERINE
Me, Kat.
SAMI
Me, Sami,
ALI
and me, Ali.
SAMI
I’m recording this now, baby!
ALI
Shit, it’s a podcast!
SAMI
Welcome, everybody to the Resist + Renew podcast.
We are here today with a number of people from Youth 4 Climate Leeds. Youth 4 Climate Leeds was a group that was founded in early 2019 as part of the Global Youth Strike for Climate, and Fridays For the Future movement, and is run by young people.
And why don’t you introduce yourselves? Martha, do you want to go first?
MARTHA
Hi, I’m Martha. I’m part of Youth 4 Climate Leeds. I’ve been part of this group since 2019. And obviously, we’re all incredibly passionate about climate justice and social justice as part of the group.
SAMI
Great: Naomi?
NAOMI
Yeah, so. Hi, I’m Naomi. I’m part of Youth 4 Climate Leeds as well. So I’ve been kind of involved with the climate movement more formally with like different organisations and companies for a while. And then in like, early March 2021, I’ve become more involved with like the organising. So ever since then, I’ve been organising weekly.
SAMI
Amazing, good stuff. And Nell.
NELL
Yeah, I’m Nell. I’ve been involved in Youth 4 Climate Leeds since March 2019. So early days, and and it’s been a big part of my life ever since.
SAMI
Great! Okay, so starting us off. What is the political context that you’re organising in? Could you tell us a little bit about that?
MARTHA
So Youth 4 Climate Leeds is basically part of this global reaction to governments’ lack of lack of policymaking towards this incredible crisis that we face at the moment. And specifically, the strikes are obviously, they’re inspired by the wider Fridays For Future movement that began with Greta Thunberg. So it’s all inspirational from that.
And we, we strike about every few months, and we tried to put pressure on the government to make policy that deals with climate change, and to empower young people within Leeds within that context as well.
SAMI
Great, thank you. And so could you maybe say a little bit about – You said, I can’t remember exactly the wording but something around like resistance to like government inaction, or whatever. Could you say a little bit about, like, that, and how you understand that? Like, what, what do you think, what do you think’s going on? Like, why do you feel like this, the kind of stuff you’re doing is a good, a good tactic?
MARTHA
So our kind of ways that we organise are through civil disobedience. And we encourage young people to strike from education in a kind of disturbance, but a self inflicted disturbance. So a lot of the criticisms that can come to nonviolent, like nonviolent direct action is that you’re inflicting it on other people. But this is a self sacrificing move, because we are so frustrated with the government and how climate change just doesn’t seem to be at the top of their priority, no matter how much talking they do.
I mean, if you look at the facts in terms of climate change, and where we are now, I mean, we are currently in the sixth mass extinction, a third of coral reefs have have died out already. It’s an incredibly important issue. And our lives depend on it. So we’ll strike and we’ll carry on striking until the government decide to really take it seriously.
And that’s in the context also of COP26 happening later this year. And with wanting to really get something material out of that, because the agreements made so far like the Paris 2015 Accord, they didn’t go far enough. So we’ll keep on pushing until we get what we want.
ALI
Absolutely. Yeah. You mentioned, like, some of the scale of the crisis around climate, the sixth mass extinction that’s happening that’s obviously, with the latest IPCC reports, it’s becoming more and more clear that we’re heading in a really bad direction. And anyone feel free to come in on this one, like, what do you see as the cause of the crisis? Like, is it just like you said that governments aren’t doing anything? Or what, what else is like, underlying the climate crisis for for you all in your group?
NELL
Firstly, I think it’s like this idea of like the selfishness and greed that’s been perpetuated. Like, the wealth, I don’t know the wealth, like greedy. And everyone’s, I think there’s a lot of selfishness going on, like even people in like, first world in inverted commas or like Western countries talk about the climate crisis, and then still expect so much like material goods and digital goods. Without realising that, like, if we, if we, like, in this ideal world that we’re fighting for, we wouldn’t have all this stuff, we wouldn’t have, like, I don’t think we’d have a laptop each, we wouldn’t have all this equipment that we’re doing this podcast with, I wouldn’t be in this, like, nice University room with all these nice amenities.
But, you know, in the, in an ideal world, we would, we’d still be happy and healthy and have the things that we need, we just have less of these luxuries that we have today because they should be given to people who don’t have anything to sort of, like, even at the playing field.
And the other thing I think is – I can’t remember what the question was. I was gonna go on about the media, though. Like how, like a cause of the climate crisis, I think, is that people are being kind of, I don’t know, people don’t believe it. Because, like, I don’t know, like tabloid media, controlled by I dunno Rupert Murdoch and stuff like that, and also Facebook. Have part, they’ve invested like billions in sort of, like, sort of, you know, creating questions and quite, you know, creating phrasing and wording that makes people question the climate crisis. And so they could, you know, they, I think they came up with the term ‘global warming’, because warming’s like a nice word has nice connotations, they put a lot of money into sort of psychological stuff. And using wording that makes people question its legitimacy as a scientific fact. So even today, people think, you know, they think there’s a scientific debate. I’ve thought that people who think, Oh, well, it’s not proven, you know, scientists or, you know, they don’t they don’t agree on it. And it’s like, no, they do, like 99% of them agree. So those are the two things, I think: the media, and then just like this sort of selfish attitude that we have.
MARTHA
Yeah, I would just adding on to the next point, that the reason a lot of the reason we’re here, because we’re all of the country’s economies, well, the vast majority of them are based on neoliberalism, which has just this constant desire for growth, and to be, to build more and to make more money. And it prioritises, as Boris Johnson said the other day, wage growth over life expectancy, and and cancer and cancer recovery rates. It’s it’s this whole system, which is completely rigged to keep on making tonnes of money and, and ruin the environment.
Because the environment: you cannot put a price on it. But that is the that’s the exact issue, that you can’t put a price on cutting down the tree, but you can make a profit from it. So when you’re when you’re in this economy that rewards irresponsible behaviour, you’re going to end up in a climate crisis and here, and here we are. And we’ve been, and then they talk about how they can balance solving the climate crisis with, with neoliberalism, as if we haven’t been trying to do that for the last 30 years and completely failed. We’ve com-, we’ve completely failed, our emissions are set to rise by 12% in the next 10 years. So this, this, you cannot have solving the climate crisis and, and capitalism, unfortunately. Because if it has a constant desire for growth on a lim- on a planet with limited resources, then you can’t balance the two. So it’s, the issue is based around around an economic system that just does not coincide with ecological justice, unfortunately.
SAMI
Yeah, I think that’s, I think those are all some really good points. I think the thing that economists talk about is perverse incentives, right? Like living in a structure which basically encourages behaviour, which is ecocidal, and doesn’t encourage the kind of behaviours and ways of relating to each other, which would lead to a life, which is like still good and happy, but maybe with less stuff, like you were saying before. Or at least for some of us, probably we don’t need as much stuff as we have. Amazing, thank you.
ALI
Yeah, great. Thank you for that background. You’ve already mentioned a bit about like, what, what Youth 4 Climate group does in Leeds, but Naomi do you want to expand on that and tell us like, yeah, what, what it is to be in this group and what kind of things you’re working on, and how how you do it.
NAOMI
And yeah, so obviously, Martha mentioned briefly a bit about it. So like, we’ve kind of formed from the Youth Strike for Climate movement which is kind of inspired by Greta Thunberg, as Martha said, which is kind of like, obviously grown to this massive global movement called Fridays for Future.
But like the Leeds Youth Strike 4 Climate has kind of changed over the past years with lockdowns and COVID and everything. So it’s changed from, like, less of a ‘youth strike’ movement to like this Youth 4 Climate movement, which, you know, gives people the option of striking if they want to, and being involved in civil disobedience, but also putting like at the heart of our work, like improving education, climate, education, racial justice, education and things like that.
We do have, like, key, like, principles. So obviously, we believe in youth voices, and that they’re vital for young people. And then, like, we want to use our experience in climate activism, and youth empowerment, just to just move that on to not only just like climate change, but kind of this whole climate justice movement, and racial justice, which I think is definitely more clear in some of our more recent actions as we’ve come out of lockdowns.
I mean, on the 24th of September, we had a strike, which was co-hosted by Black Lives Matter Leeds. So you can definitely see in our work like a change in focus from this kind of like, climate change, we want to strike, but also like this empowerment of young people, and making sure that everything’s accessible and safe for people to share their youth voices and things like that. Yeah, that’s all,
ALI
Amazing. So I was involved in like, a lot of climate stuff a few years ago, through like, anti aviation struggles around the expansion of Heathrow and Plane Stupid and like, as a person of colour in the climate movement, it feels super white. And it feels like a lot of like, the things that you’re talking about around climate justice, and the links between climate and racial justice haven’t been there. So that’s really encouraging for me to hear that. Can you talk about about, like, how those links have come about? And like, why, why you think those links are important? Because that, I totally agree. And I’d just, like really like to hear how that came about? Yeah.
NAOMI
Well, I mean, for me, obviously, I’m quite like I’m a newer member of Youth Strike 4 Climate. But like, I’ve done a lot of work with different organisations. And you know, when you when you join the cause, we can just see, like, the type of demographic, it’s very, kind of, kind of, despite white space. So I think a lot of its come from Youth 4 Climate kind of observing spaces, kind of looking at Leeds, and, like the varying cultures around Leeds, and just making sure that we celebrate everyone, and make sure that all our work, you know, puts the heart of the people rather than, you know, the specific typical, kind of, like white percentage who are represented enough as it is, and making sure that we have an accessible and open space for people to come in and participate wherever they can. And whenever they want.
ALI
Amazing. Yeah, Nell, you want to add something?
NELL
Yeah, in terms of climate change, and racism as well. I was on a really interesting call, I think it’s a while ago now, but it’s sort of, on the sort of, um, yeah, on the cau- on, like, the cause of those issues are very, very, like interlinked more than you think. And it’s this yeah, like Martha’s on about neoliberalism, which reach from colonialism and capitalism. And this idea of like, exploiting both people on the land, was all what colonialism was about. And that’s sort of like, where racism and sort of a lot of my mental issues are really sort of, like stemmed from. Or the ones, you know, there’s issues that we see today, and those of them stem from colonialism.
And then the other huge link between racial injustice and climate injustice is like, what, who climate change will affect. So you’ve seen with COVID, that big issues like this, but you know, COVID has impacted the most vulnerable people already. But if you’ve looked at how COVID affected, say, India, compared to the UK, and it’s always the poorest people who are hit the hardest. And it’s often the poorest people all the most, like, disadvantaged that they’ve not caused any of this, like it’s not my fault at all. So climate change is going to displace people from the coasts, you know, it’s gonna affect people who don’t have access to health care, and stuff like that. So yeah, it’s like the causes the cau-both the cause and the effects, basically, of climate change is interlinked with racial justice is what I’m trying to get at.
ALI
Yeah, absolutely, and those links are, like, clear and important, but they’re also muddied by like some of the things that you were talking about before about the media they and like, the narratives around climate change. It’s, like very, push it onto like the very scientific thing of like carbon and parts per million and and all that like very dry things.
But what you were saying before colonialism and capitalism and the people who are going to be affected by things, a lot of that is about, like, who counts as people who ‘people’, which people do revalue. And like, if we valued all people the same, we wouldn’t be able to like, exploit them, when we valued nature as much as we valued ourselves, then we wouldn’t be able to exploit nature either. And like, I feel like those those things are really, really interlinked. So yeah, thanks for for sharing that. Sami, do you want to come in with the next one?
SAMI
Yeah, sure. Thank you. So it’ll be really great if you could talk a little bit more about like, what kind of things you’re focusing on in your work. And like, why you want, why you’re focusing on those things. You mentioned already a little bit of a shift, maybe away from striking as much being the core focus, because of COVID. But if you could just talk a little bit more about like, what kind of things you’re, you’re like you’re focusing on as a group? And I guess maybe, if possible, like a little bit about how your group is structured? I think you mentioned like, you have like regular meetings. And like, if you could talk a little bit about that, that would be great.
NELL
Yeah, so structurally, we’re sort of very chaotic, because they’re in a bunch of teenagers, we try to be kind of non hierarchical, and like, alternate roles a little bit, because in any, for example, like the note taker of a meeting will have that, you know, that, you know, they’re the ones taking the notes, they can like, emphasise the parts they want to, even though they try not to, there’s going to be some bit of bias so we try and rotate roles. But we don’t do a great to do a great job of that, because we do kind of fall into place. But I guess that helps efficiency because you sort of get better at a certain role.
And yeah, structurally, we’re also trying to sort of improve ourselves about safeguarding stuff because we were all under 18. But obviously, now that we’ve got people ranging, I’m 19. And my friend who still in, sort of will be continuing you for climate for longer than me, which will be like 20. But we’ll be working with 15 year olds. So we kind of got to start looking into safeguarding and things like that.
And also start looking into some protective measures in place as well to make sure that people who come into the space, yeah, have a bit of a protection and someone to go to if something goes wrong. If someone says something racist to them, someone says something sexist, or ableist this, we have, like some structural, something structural in place, so there’ll be repercussions.
But at the moment, it’s, we’re a little bit chaotic, you know, like everyone is these days.
Yeah, in terms of our focus, we’re kind of focusing on improving accessibility at the moment, which is why we teamed up with BLM for our last strike. And we really tried to sort of like, sort of talk about each other’s messages and try and like combine the two because we were saying that they’re such like interlinked causes, we kind of want to spread the idea.
And other things we do to increase accessibility: we have this idea that if you’re just striking then you’re just gonna get the same people striking because if somebody can’t strike for whatever reason, they won’t be able to come, they won’t be able to get involved. So we’re trying to do like, slightly more of a range of actions. So we did like guerilla gardening, which is where you sort of spread greenery into concrete places, like with plant pots and stuff. And it was really cute it’s a really fun day. And like craftivism as well: banner making, arty stuff. We did like an online letter writing workshop for the Kill the Bill campaign. We tried to support that by yeah, doing like a letter writing, like an MP letter writing workshop, and did a little bit of research into: how you can, you know, how to best, like, persuade an MP, how to do it politely. Did a bit of research into their campaign. And so hopefully that means that, like, more people can join in, because they have something that suits them, if that makes sense. So yeah, that’s, that’s our focus at the moment.
MARTHA
And also, pre COVID, we was just before, I think it was in February 2020. So right before COVID started, we also put on a it was like a, it was like a fundraiser slash kind of gig at this amazing local venue called Wharf Chambers, who put on great stuff all the time, and particularly around social justice issues, and we got local bands and performative arts to come.
And that was also in reaction to kind of our frustration with the lack of youth oriented places for people to go. And how, for example, say with austerity measures, the amount of youth centres have really, really closed and for youth to be able to do things nowadays they have to pay a huge amount of money and that really impacts people so negatively.
SAMI
Amazing. Thank you, Martha. And yeah, I think that like the need for like just spaces for young people to exist when so many youth centres have been shut, it’s just like such a crucial thing. It’s really interesting that you’ve built that into your plans. Nell, did you want to jump in?
NELL
Yeah, I was just gonna chip in that I think the teenager demographic in particular is one that’s been hit hardest because you still get like play areas and stuff with children under 12. And this, you know, sort of like school clubs and stuff like that. But once you get to the age of, like, sort of 13, 13 to 18, there’s really not a lot. I dunno like, what do kids that age do? Like, they sort of just hang about, there’s nothing for us to do. It’s, it’s a shame, it really is a shame.
SAMI
Yeah, I think that’s a really good point.
A thought came to my mind, when you were all talking around, how you discussed like, the, like that cut that kind of linking up that you did with BLM Leeds. I think that’s a really interesting one. Because I think there’s, there’s often broadly like kind of two approaches that groups will take when they, if they’re like, if they notice that they tend to have like, drawn from a certain community. And so for example, like they’re quite a white group in a place that is not necessarily like a super white area, or things like that. And, and one of them, which it sounds like, isn’t the one that you’ve taken, is people will talk about, like diversifying the group and like trying to bring more people in that like, don’t match the demographics of the people in the group. And then there’s like another broad approach, which is around kind of like partnering and working with and in solidarity with other groups that you feel like represent the kind of like, where you feel like maybe some of the areas you’re not as strong on in your group are. And it sounds like you leaned more to like the second one of those two things in terms of like teaming up with BLM Leeds. Like is that, that this is maybe an assumption of mine so please do tell me if I’m off, if, if that’s off base. But I think that’s, I think it’s a really interesting one? And like, I’d be really interested to know, like, what, what was the thought process that like, led to that action? Like, how did that, how did that come about? How did you decide that that was the thing you were gonna do and like work with BLM Leeds? Is that a thing that anybody would be happy to speak to?
NELL
Yeah, I mean, we already had links with BLM Leeds from Marvina Newton, she sort of attended some of our meetings, and we’ve been working with us since sort of day dot really. And she’s one of the cofounders of BLM Leeds. So that really, that was kind of one of the main reasons. But also just the fact that we kind of as a group, or have this idea that the team issues are very interlinked. So we kind of, yeah, we wanted to team up.
And yeah, it’s fair to say that we kind of went down that pathway of sort of working in solidarity, rather than trying to draw people in, because, you know, it just I don’t know, like, like, would would you feel comfortable getting into space where everyone’s different to you? Probably not. And like, we don’t want our space to be all white. But like, I didn’t want to, sort of I dunno, we didn’t want to, like, draw people in like that, like they’re assets, do you know what I mean? It just feels a little bit mean.
But at the same time, it will be great to have a more diverse group, because then you have such, you’d have a much broader range of perspectives, ideas, and sort of thoughts and connections going on. But yeah, so what we’re going to try and do is sort of think about our group structurally to try and make it a safer place for different people to join.
And so people, you know, from, like, black, if they’re black or brown can come in and know that they’ll be protected structurally in some sort of way. And hopefully that will help in the long run, sort of diversify our group a bit. I think we used to be more diverse. And then, I guess, I dunno, I think there must be like a process, like de-diversification going on.
I think I think if we went in early days, I don’t think we were aware about racial justice and stuff. This was like pre BLM; well, it wasn’t pre-BLM but it was pre the resurgence of BLM, pre George Floyd. And it totally wasn’t in my mind. So like, I don’t know, if I was the person who talked over, like brown members of our group, I hope I didn’t know you don’t know, do. And so yeah, it’s kind of yeah I don’t know if I can swear, but it’s a bit shit really. But I hope we can sort of, yeah, make it make our group, better allies and sort of improve, improve the way we work a little bit more.
SAMI
Thanks. I really, I really appreciate that answer. And I think, like, I think I mean, I don’t I don’t know, I don’t know your group in detail, right? Like, I’m not, I don’t live in Leeds, I’m not part of your crew. But like, I think that it sounds like, from at least my perspective, that’s kind of broadly maybe like, the ideas are on the right track in the sense of like, often when the- when there are these questions, right? Often there’s both, like, what can we do on the individual level? And then what can we do on like, the kind of structural level of the group, and like, it sounds like you’re kind of doing things on both of those levels. You’re doing stuff in terms of like, as individuals, you’re like, thinking of like, who you can collaborate with and like how you can like, strengthen and like work in solidarity with other groups that you feel aligned with. And you’re thinking about, like, what are the structures of your group? Because it seems like there has been some process of like, de-diversification (which I’m not sure I’ve encountered as a word before, but it’s a really useful one and I will use in the future). Like in terms of like that, how that looks and how there were people in your group before. It’s not that they didn’t turn up, but it’s that they’ve gone. Why did they go, and that kind of stuff. So like, I mean, it sounds like it sounds like there are some good questions that you’re wrestling with. I guess it’s an observation I’d make as an outsider. So that’s always good to know. And Ali? Over to you.
ALI
I feel like we’re already getting into this kind of like, group dynamics-y questions and values. But it’d be great to hear a bit more about like, how you hold some values as a group? How do they play out internally? So like, you know, we’ve had interviews around prison abolition, for example. And a thing that they would talk about is like transformative justice instead of punitive justice. So like, how do we treat each other with care internally, as well as like, not wanting to punish each other externally and rely on, like, policing? So like, yeah, is there any values in Youth 4 Climate Strike – I’m forgetting your name – Youth 4 Climate Leeds that externally are really important, that you also try and practice internally.
MARTHA
And so we’re definitely one of our obviously key values is social justice. And this kind of manifests itself in various ways. So for example, with our recent strike in collaboration with BLM Leeds, in solidarity with BLM Leeds, we chose not to notify the police to align with their belief, and whether the police actually really protect us. And that was just a demonstration, I don’t know, of the I don’t really know what I’m trying to say!
But we’ve also worked with like various other groups, for example, like we did a feast in the street in the summer, where we worked with other climate groups, such as GALBA, which is against the Leeds Bradford airport expansion, and Care for Calais, which deal with migrants from, that have come over to the UK from Calais and housed in Leeds and the COP26 coalition. So I think we just strive towards a kind of coalition of groups within Leeds.
ALI
Amazing. I think we might talk a bit more about, yeah, that coalition building later. Does anyone else want to speak a bit more about the broader picture of like, the, how you embed values internally, that are important externally? I feel like you’ve all mentioned like accessibility and like empowering youth as important things for your group. And I feel like, it sounds like you’re putting effort into like, practical ways of making that possible. So it’d be great to hear a bit more detail around how those practicalities work out.
Yeah, well, funnily enough, we had like, you know, once we were going up to COVID, there was this huge stupid ongoing debate of whether we should go back in person or not, because we have a few autistic people in our group, who would prefer it online but then everyone else prefers it in person. So it is a very, like, in terms of accessibility, that conversation went on for way too long, and in the end we’ve we’ve sort of got a bit of a balance going on at the moment where we do online meetings for three weeks and then on the fourth week, we’ll have an in person meeting which is like, the first one of the month in itself is quite exciting.
And so yeah, that’s, that’s one way that we’re sort of internalising our outward values. Let me thing, what else? I suppose like internal communications: like, we’ve been a little bit rubbish at those but we tried more recently to sort of make sure that every single person who might be attending meeting knows when the meeting is, which sounds like a very low bar but we often, because of COVID and stuff and everything’s all up in the air, rather than having like a regular meetup we basically we used to have like a regular time that we’d meet but now it’s a little chaotic. So, yeah, we usually try and make sure that everyone knows when the meeting is. Maybe, I dunno, it’s a pretty low bar for accessibility you can cut that out if you want to but if it if it if the conversation flows on from it then keep it in! [laughs]
ALI
Thanks yeah, I mean, I think it’s it’s a bar that not everyone always meets. So I think like keeping keeping that end is fine!
[Music break by Kareem Samara]
Yeah, Sami, do you want to move us onto the next piece here?
SAMI
And yeah, I just, um, I guess I wanted to reflect like, on the way that you framed that, like, it had a lot of internal discussions around, like whether to do stuff like online or offline. And I think that’s not, I think for those things it can, it can often feel like, like a decision that should be simple, right? So it feels like something but it shouldn’t take lots of time to chat about, but I feel like in practice, it is a thing that does speak to like, some quite fundamental values around like accessibility and around like, safety and different people’s like, vulnerabilities to COVID and all this kind of stuff. So I think like, it sounds like that, like the plan that you’ve come up with, which is like, you’re gonna have, like, you’re still gonna keep a lot of your meetings online, but you are going to have some meetings offline too, to try and like make sure that everybody’s getting some of the needs they want. That feels like a pretty, like sophisticated compromise, I guess. And like, I think those kind of things are things are having to happen a lot more in groups nowadays, when people are trying to like, especially given the lack of like, there’s not much structural, formal, high up guidance on like how to do things safely or well. Government guidance is basically like, “Everyone should just all die.” Or, “Everyone should go back to work,” generally. And the nuance just gets totally disappeared. So I think it’s, it’s all groups end up having to struggle with those questions themselves. And so like, just to reflect on like, it is, it doesn’t always feel like a values-y thing. But I think it’s important that you listed it in that question, because I do think it is a values-y thing.
And, and I did actually have a follow up question on that on the on the chat earlier if that’s okay, Ali before we move on to on to the final question? Which is around: you mentioned, that you do a lot of work with like, like the COP26 coalition, and like BLM Leeds and Care for Calais and groups like that. And you said a little bit about like, trying to work in like a broad, maybe like informal coalition of like groups across Leeds and stuff. And I’m one I’m wondering why that is like, why do you feel like that is the thing that is useful for you to do? Why do you think that it’s good to work in like a coalition of lots of different local groups? What’s that? What’s the idea behind that?
MARTHA
And well, a lot of it’s kind of just been, I don’t really know, it’s just kind of happened think there’s just… At the end of the day, it’s better to just work together. It’s it’s, it’s far more effective to achieve everyone’s goals of, of this kind of social justice and climate justice. The-for everyone just to come together with that. I mean, for example, like me and Naomi recently, where it was a kind of cross of the GALBA movement within Leeds, which is against the the Leeds-Bradford airport expansion and Youth 4 Climate where there were a few a few of us were representatives and went down to London as on behalf of Youth 4 Climate with GALBA to deliver this petition against the expansion of Leeds-Bradford airport and to call Robert Jenrick, into the calling an inquiry. So that was just like a, just they thought it’d be more effective for youth representatives to go down and deliver it. So it’s, it’s all about how we best think that these goals can be achieved and utilising each of the strengths to do that.
NAOMI
Yeah, so kind of just to follow on from what Martha said. I think also, obviously, due to the nature of us being, like, busy students, a lot of us are like college or university level age now. I think just kind of like logistically and kind of, I don’t want to say resources, but basically resources wise, you know, we do often need like the support the guidance that you get from these other organisations, just to them being, having more like years behind them experience-wise and having the different networks. It means that you know, when groups do visible actions, or put on workshops or something like that, it means you can come together and have this kind of like, bigger, bigger group. A kind of a wider focus, but also like different groups like BLM Leeds, GALBA or some like XR Families. It means when they come together, they can kind of, you know, celebrate as a larger group, but kind of help each other out on a particular aim, which I think especially in Leeds is such a nice atmosphere. Like I’m not sure about other cities, but kind of the activism networking needs is quite strong at the moment, you know, communicating with each other. And I don’t know if XR Families put on a picnic or something, it’s always nice to go and kind of see the other groups participate and help out.
SAMI
Amazing, thank you. No, I think that’s really it’s really it’s really good to know like how those things are working and other places, it’s like, yeah, I’m not I’m not based in Leeds so, that’s really helpful to share. Thank you. And so yeah, if we can now move on to the question of like, what can people do, if they’re inspired by what they’ve heard you talking about.?
NAOMI
So I think kind of a big part of the climate and climate movement in the UK is the kind of youth strike climate, obviously, we’re Youth 4 Climate now. But if you look at I don’t know, Oxford, or London or Manchester, there’s so many groups similar to ours, having like similar aims and similar approaches that you can kind of so easily join, whether you’re a young person or kind of an older adult, like recently, we did a recent kind of event not, we didn’t necessarily call it a strike. We had the support of people of varying ages. So whether kind of you’re a young person, kind of teenagers, who wants to come weekly to meetings, and help organise you know, there’s plenty of kind of opportunities to do that globally, nationally, in kind of regional groups.
But also, if you’re an adult, and you want to come like first aid or steward on events, I think, you know, getting in contact with your local group is such an, like, simple way to do that. And it doesn’t necessarily take up much of your time, either. And then also, I think, if you’re inspired by what you’ve heard, it kind of, not necessarily to take direct action, which, of course, we would love you to do. But also in like, your everyday lives, you know, these choices that you make daily, you know, just kind of check yourself, check your privilege when you you know, in varying spaces.
Or from a, like climate change and environmental perspective, you know, how is your impact influencing our environment, our own surroundings, obviously, but acknowledging the fact that, you know, you’re not, you’re not to blame for this climate change issue. Yeah. But also, whilst we want government and corporational change, it’s also just making sure it’s individuals and you kind of reflect your beliefs and kind of portray what you want in the for the future.
NELL
Yeah, just following in, from what Naomi said, about doing what you can, on an individual level, but realising a lot of blame. And I just totally want a second that like, if you want to, you know, if you want to make real change, obviously, like, make change in your personal life, go vegan, buy less new things, always buy secondhand.
But like, if you really, if you really, really want to make change, it’s like, you need to join a group. You know, like we were talking before about groups themselves joining together into larger groups like coalitions and stuff. It’s the same on an individual level, like if you join with other human beings, you have such a bigger impact. Like, it’s all about networks, isn’t it? Like, the more the more people join up, and like, work on something together, the bigger and better it will be. So. And yeah, if you want to change and team up with someone else!
SAMI
That seems like a good, a good sentiment to close it out on. So thank you.
And there are some there’s some other questions that have like come to my mind in the course of the thing, but has not really been a great a great point to ask them. So would you mind if, if they were asked now? Who knows, maybe we’ll edit them back into the main body of the stuff.
One is like a thing, which I’m always intrigued by. And that we, me and Ali and others in our group will often like discuss with groups is like, basically: Why do you do the things that you do? Like why do you choose the tactics that you choose in like, whatever struggle you’re a part of? And obviously, like, the, the history of your group is very, like strikes-based. And so the question that I wonder is like, what do you see as the value of like, strikes as a tactic? Because you’ve said, even though you’ve said that, like, you’re doing less of them now maybe because COVID and things like that, then you were previously like, it does sound like you are still, like, doing strikes and strike-like events and things like that. So like, was it, what is it that you see is the benefit of, like, strikes versus something else that you could be doing some of those other things you might also be getting? But like, why strikes?
NELL
Yeah, I just, I just think it’s kind of like spread the word a little bit more. Like, if you’re not at school, and you have to tell your teachers, you have to tell your friends why you’re not at school. And then, I don’t know, it gets the message out. Like, if you just went to a protest at the weekend, no one would know about it so much. Whereas if that’s like another form of getting people to know about the event, know about the protests that sort of spreads it a bit it.
And also I think it’s quite exciting to sort of, to strike I think that’s one of the allures of it really, is that you’re sort of skipping school, but in a good way. And it’s still kind of education as well, because there’s a lot of learning and sort of political engagement, you do a strike, so that’s quite cool. And I think I think it feels a little bit rebellious, doesn’t it? That’s why kids like it. You get to sort of go against the head teacher and stuff. Get into trouble. And that’s also one of the criticisms because like, if you’re a kid that gets into trouble a lot, which often is disproportionately, like black and brown people because of like, and structural racism and all that. That means that the strikes are inaccessible to a lot of people. So it’s a very it’s a very strong tactic, I think strikes, it’s got a lot of very good pros, very good things about it, and a lot of very bad things about it as well. So yeah, a bit of a tricky one.
MARTHA
Yeah, we’ve we’ve been kind of, there’s been discussions recently about, like strikes and stuff. So we felt for our most recent one that we would do it later in the day. So previously, this, so this was like our first proper strike, post COVID. And pre COVID, they used to start about 11? 10 or 11, mainly 11. And then we set we decided to do it from three till six this time, so three in the afternoon, and that was to reflect the kind of loss of education through COVID lockdowns. So we’ve been, we tried to do them later to make them more accessible and feel like more people can attend them. So we do think they’re effective. But that doesn’t mean that they they can’t be modified. And it’s part of this whole wider movement of the Fridays for Future thing, which is where this all stemmed from.
SAMI
Yeah, I think. And I think that’s really good, right? Like I said, it’s important to both like, it’s important sometimes to have like consistency, so people can like practice things and get better at them. And it’s important to like, innovate and change stuff up and things like that when it feels necessary to. And I think I guess it goes back to the chat that you were saying before, around, like, how each, like every tactic’s got a downside, right? And that’s why it’s important to do a lot of different types of tactics, because then like the people that find one less accessible can maybe get more involved in another one and things like that.
Great, thank you. And I could just keep chatting indefinitely. At some point we’re probably gonna Well, yeah, I guess I had one more question. Which was, you mentioned, you used the term, which I wouldn’t have expected you to use it, which is why I want to ask about it, like you talked about, like a need to do like, think more about, like, safeguarding and stuff. And I think of I work in a charity. And I think of, like, people talking about safeguarding: it’s quite like, quite like a formal term. And, and I think it’s really interesting, because you’re talking a little bit it sounded like there’s, you’re concerned about, like the power dynamics that could come into play in your group, when you’ve got like, maybe like 20 year olds working with 15 year olds, and like, the kind of like issues that can bring up and the kind of like risks that can come with that kind of work. And I’m just wondering if you could just speak a little bit more about like, what your what’s your kind of thinking in terms of like, how you’re going to negotiate those like potential power imbalances, which are like one of I imagine a form of a lot of different power imbalances that could exist in your group. Like, what are you thinking about them in terms of how to safeguard or whatever?
NAOMI
And yeah, so basically, I don’t know. Nell or Math might kind of see a different perspective from this. But on an individual level, I have come from, like, kind of what started my action in like the climate movement was from like, courses or like funded programmes, which are more formal. And I have I’ll say a mentor, a lady that I work with, she’s from the National Youth Agency, and she runs one of the kind of projects that I’ve participated in.
So these have been like, I’ve been doing this alongside Youth for Climate Leeds. So what I saw was like a visible difference in kind of the media consent forms, the parental consent forms, like the safeguarding documents I’ve received for this other project compared to like Youth for Climate Leeds.
And I think, you know, I watched – not like a lecture or a panel discussion earlier this year about kind of Extinction Rebellion’s activism, its kind of interaction with youth, especially going from kind of more educational contexts where you have to fill out a form, you know, to walk across the road. Whereas to climate movements, we’ve got 13 year olds, like doing road blocks: I think it’s kind of a shocking thing. And you have to kind of, from my perspective, it was definitely something new that I saw and kind of like this big difference, even though the actions that were going on, all had the same motivation.
So for me, I kind of raised this point earlier this year, kind of like mid year. And I think what can, so we’ve kind of what we’ve changed and like working towards is a power dynamic thing is, so we’re creating like safeguarding documents. Which there’s, there’s so many resources online and courses about safeguarding. So those outline, like, the interaction between groups. So we’re going to create like a guideline document, which means: let’s say if we work with a group in Leeds, we’ll send these across as kind of a formal perspective and for something to read through. So maybe it’s going to outline that you need to be mindful of the nature of us being teenagers, and you have to be mindful of the fact you know, we’re a lot of us are in full time education. So what our time dedication may be less than yours, but you need to be mindful of that we are still contributing as much as we can. Resource wise, stuff like that.
And then kind of like an internal comms kind of like safeguarding is just having an kind of just having a set structure of kind of consent forms for media. So outward communications, and then consent forms, which will be kind of age dependent (none of its decided) but also like our dues for contact details, and having the space for like any members to pass on their concerns to a formal body, because obviously, there will be a safeguarding board and lead. So we’re creating documents kind of that outline this, emphasise this, so if any severe incidents occur, we do have the capacity to pass them on, and it is a safe space for young people. And I think this also kind of really reinforces the idea that we want young people there. Just because a lot of us are, like, later teens now. So it kind of shows that we’re encouraging younger children and like early teens to get involved in a safe and kind of like, the more focus on welfare.
NELL
Yeah, so, Naomi was saying about them talking with other groups just kind of reminded me an interesting point about how much adults expect of you as a kid in activism. Like, when I got involved. I was, I think it just turned 17 but I felt a lot younger than I do now. Like, people expect a lot of you it’s really weird, like, um, like, groups have worked with like GALBA, they’re great, but they kind of have a lot of activists are either retired or kind of quite young, I think? And the retired people forget that you are just children, and you get a lot of requests from loads of different groups to attend to like attend all their calls and sort of add perspectives and join their group and do do stuff with them.
And it’s just like, yeah, we’ve only just started thinking like, wait, maybe we should have some boundaries because like, we can’t do all this! It’s been a problem that we’ve had for like two years that we just keep taking on everything requests of us. And we don’t we’re literally kids that go to high school and stuff. Like I remember and in college I got so like it was it was ridiculous, really like, school was second my activism was first thing. I would flunk off to do these things that people were expecting of me. So yeah, it’s it’s quite an interesting power dynamic, really. And, yeah. I just wanted to add that in: the world of activism is a, it’s an odd place.
SAMI
Yeah, and I think it’s, I think there is a tension right, because I think there are really bad unhealthy norms that exist in a lot of like, activist-y spaces around like, really weird ideas of like work ethic and stuff like that. Where people think that it’s good and valuable to basically focus 100% of your time on organising stuff and not like have a life outside of that, not really see other friends, like, not have other hobbies and things like that. And then just people get so drained and burnt out that then they have to give up and not do anything anymore, because it’s just so tiring.
And I think it’s, it’s really telling of like, an approach that people have where like, the second that there’s like a group of young people, people are like, “Ah, you should also do things like we do and take on a million requests and like, be really busy all the time and that kind of thing.” I’m not sure that’s one of the things that should be passed on and continued. I think that work ethic, I think it’s terrible! And Martha looks like you got a thing to say and then maybe we can probably wrap up because we’ve we’ve taken a lot of your time, as and don’t want to take the piss given that we’re talking about how much time things can take up! [laughs]
MARTHA
Yeah, I definitely think there is sometimes such, like, an ethic within activist circles of that you’ll, like there’s like you kind of take on this approach like, ‘I can change the world by myself.’ And then you end up just taking on so much work and it just becomes ridiculous. Like, I remember like, it must have been early 2020 and I was going to, like, three meetings a week all in different places and I was in year 11! Like I don’t know what on earth I was thinking but think it’s kind of thank God for that first lockdown because it just halted it. And you just had to, you have to stop because I think that was just I don’t know why it just became this really sudden toxic work ethic of trying to take on everything and trying to change the world on an individual basis. Being like, I can do this, I can do that. But you really can’t.
And I think I think Youth 4 Climate has become a lot healthier within like the last year following the COVID lock downs of dispersing and not increasing responsibility in any one person. I think it’s become a lot better. I think, obviously, there’s still places, like, way to go. But I think that it’s kind of died down quite a lot.
ALI
That sounds good. But yeah, yeah. A shame that you, even as young people have to go through the same kind of activist ethic of overwork and burning out or, like, going to all the meetings in all the different places. But yeah, it feels healthy to have like, had that reflection.
And I feel like what you’re saying there around, like, trying to change everything as an individual really isn’t healthy. And I think what was said before around, like, the way to change things is to come together as a group. And I think that absolutely makes sense. It’s like: yeah, being in a group, thinking about how you can do things together in a healthy way, is just, feels so much more sustainable, and so much more like healthy as the way to go.
Yeah, just want to say thank you for speaking to us today. It’s been a real pleasure. And one of the things I’ll be taking from it is that if you want to change anything, go join a group, that could definitely be our tagline for our organisation. So definitely, definitely supporting that. But yeah, appreciating the time you’ve taken speak to us. And yeah, it’s been a real real pleasure. Thanks. Thanks very much.
MARTHA
Thanks. Bye.
NELL
Thanks, like to say, it’s been great talking to you.
ALI
Big thanks to Naomi, Nell and Martha from Leeds Youth 4 Climate for joining us today.
You can follow them on Facebook, they are Leeds Youth 4 Climate and on Twitter: they’re Youth 4 Climate Leeds, or @YLeedsUK.
As always, Big thanks to Klaus and Kareem Samara for letting us use their music as backing tracks and interludes.
And if you want to find out more about Resist Renew, we are at Resistrenew.com. You can find transcripts for all our episodes there. We’re also on all the socials and we’ve got a Patreon so if you want to support the production of this podcast, you can do so there.
Thanks for listening and catch you next time!