Engaging young people

Transition is about designing a more localised and resilient future for everyone. Today’s young people will be starting families and building livelihoods in that world, so they should be part of Transition as soon as possible. ‘Young people’ here refers to a range of ages, from toddlers through to teenagers, all with very different interests and needs. What follows are different approaches for particular age groups.

A first impression may be that peak oil and climate change aren’t issues that concern teenagers greatly. As a 17-year-old girl at my local sixth form college told me, “I don’t think years into the future . . . only three months ahead . . . learn to drive, go to college, learn to drive go to college.” A 21-year-old who commented on this subject on Transition Culture said:

“ . . . there is still a very natural inclination to cling to the oil-driven lifestyle. Our generation grew up with it; it’s all we ever knew. If you don’t go and read through history books, you’ll think that oil is a necessary part of human life . . .”

He, however, began a Transition initiative in his community. Transition initiatives have been using a range of ways to engage and involve young people. For Joanne Porouyow at Transition Los Angeles, it is not a case of organising events for young people. Rather, “We have simply folded the young people right in as full participants in whatever the Transition groups are doing”. In practice, this includes:

• Encouraging parents to bring children to events and meetings.
• Getting young people to run events. For example Transition Mar Vista, in Los Angeles, offered a workshop called ‘Repurposing old clothes’, run by the 16-year-old grand-daughter of a member of the group. Transition Los Angeles’ ‘Cluck Trek’, a visit to several families who keep chickens, was led by the children of several chicken-owning families.

Young people can easily use blogs and Facebook to write about being involved with Transition. During the research for this book, Gerri Smyth pointed out her granddaughter’s website, ‘My Chickens’, which she has set up to document her experiences of keeping chickens.[i] Blogging for kids is very easy these days and can offer a fresh perspective on Transition, as can running workshops to teach them how to film and edit their own short videos, another interesting resource.

Transition Belsize in London are setting up ‘Transition Kids NW3’, which will offer workshops and activities decided by the kids. Initial ideas include foraging workshops, wildlife survival skills, cob building and dawn bird spotting. Also in London, Transition Finsbury Park is working with the local primary school. They found that the best time to try to engage parents and children is immediately at the end of school, especially for hands-on events. They set up an after-school food-growing club, which became so popular that Jo Homan, the organiser, said kids could come to the group only if they brought their parents. After-school Transition events were also run by Transition Tynedale. Some of the kids run an organic vegetable stall in the school grounds, sourcing produce from a local Mencap college.  

At Transition Scotland Support’s ‘Diverse Routes to Belonging’ conference in Edinburgh in November 2010, participants could bring their children, who enjoyed a parallel programme of activities organised by Sussex-based Moving Sounds. The kids organised and presented the morning’s warm-up activity, and then prepared a performance for that evening. At the Transition North conference in 2009, local teenagers Ruby, Hayley, Eugene, Paddy, Adrian and Linda, through the Two Valleys Radio, interviewed several delegates and then edited a voxpop piece, which was presented to everyone at the end of the day.[ii]  

Transition Ottawa in Canada worked with media studies students at the local university, who were set a project to make short films (under 5 minutes) to convey a powerful and practical message in order to inspire their fellow students to live more simply. They were given six topics to choose from: food, water, energy, transport, waste and simple living. Members of Transition Ottawa were available for questions, and the resultant films were then shown at Transition Ottawa events.[iii] And even the youngest people can be involved in Transition! Transition Town Letchworth (TTL) run ‘Transition Tots’, which meets once a month. Parents of children up to the age of three get together to discuss the ‘trials and tribulations of sustainable parenting’ and to work on TTL projects.[iv]

Anyone working with young people in the UK will need to be checked by the Criminal Records Bureau and follow the child protection policies of institutions they work with (similar rules probably apply elsewhere too). You should also be mindful of the fact that there are laws regarding the publication of photos of children: if these are not taken at a public event, or are in any way related to commercial gain, you will need the written permission of the children’s parents/guardians.

Transition in Action: The Oil Memorial

One of my favourite examples comes from Transition Newent, in the Forest of Dean. Students from the local community college made the ‘Oil Memorial’, a project featured in Transition Network’s wiki-film In Transition 1.0. A tower was built from blue plastic barrels. The children brought in many items made from oil, which were fixed to the tower. The project emerged from the desire to, as Michael Dunwell of Transition Forest of Dean put it, “get people to understand all the things oil does for us. I asked the children “what’s plastic made of?”, and they replied “plastic”. Looking back, Michael said, “it’s just fun, getting people involved in making something with a message . . . just to celebrate the incredible achievements that oil has brought for us, then to turn it into a memorial to say goodbye to it”.