A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present?
Confucius
Food systems intersect all three dimensions of sustainability --environmental, social and economic.
By underscoring the common threads between sustainability and food systems for their core guiding principles, Y4US provides a pipeline that other related programs can build and showcase their specialty upon.
Accordingly, Y4US outcomes are community-centered, narrated by members, mobilizing social norms to build a community its members can identify with and stand for.
Youths for Urban Sustainability (Y4US) is a skills training program for youths age 14-24 for jobs in sustainability sectors.
Its focus on growing one's own food and environmental stewardship directly engages community youths to tackle the persistent food insecurity and environmental pollution in the urban communities, along with job insecurity.
Y4US platforms an accreditation infrastructure that various organizations with the common causes can base to develop or modify to their respectively specified outcomes.
This cultivates community-based and initiated collaboration for continual learning necessary in building sustainable communities resilient with social, environmental, and economic justice and equity.
Y4US' Outcomes
Pipelining the established and emerging state-wide youth programs, Youths for Urban Sustainability:
- Aligns with the state department of education's STEM benchmarks to be integrated into local education agencies (LEA), urban public school systems in particular. This would give incentive for youths to complete their education and hold school systems accountable.
- Platforms accredited career development paths for post-secondary continual and/or re-skill learning and job opportunities pertinent to such training.