Climate Mentorship Programs

Despite their drive to make change, the next generation often finds itself carrying the weight of sustainability challenges, and to combat overwhelm and paralysis, the city of Lahti in Finland implemented a Climate Mentor program. This pioneering initiative, combining youth agency and advocacy with environmental education, launched for the first time this fall in Lahti’s high schools, providing personalized climate action support.

This program's mentors include Anni Pokela, a founding member and strategic expert at Operaatio Arktis, a State Award-recognised climate strategy agency, and Sara Yrjönmäki of One Planet, a consultancy specialising in ecological sustainability. Alongside teachers, the climate mentors assist students as they explore the impact they have, and they experiment with different ways of advocating for themselves by practicing written opinion pieces and creating social media content.

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