FIRST Gen Corporation has organized a youth leaders’ summit designed to provide youth leaders with the knowledge and skills that help them address climate- and energyrelated issues in their communities.
The conference, dubbed Youth for Climate and Energy Leadership Summit (YCELS) and held separately in Batangas City and Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija, gathered 62 youth leaders from public schools and organizations in selected communities hosting power plants affiliated with First Gen.
During the gathering, resource speakers and experts from First Gen and partner organizations shared their knowledge with the youth leaders about climate systems, renewable energy, community problem-solving and other relevant topics. YCELS included these topics to help hone the skills of the youth leaders as community leaders by expanding their knowledge about the environment and turning this knowledge into workable climate solutions.
The YCELS, which forms part of First Gen’s “Create for the Climate” flagship environmental program, likewise included practical, hands-on workshops on community visioning, root cause analysis and climate action project development.
Through these workshops, the youth leaders developed proposals that addressed realworld issues in their schools and communities. Each of the top and most innovative project proposals developed at the summit received rewards from First Gen, a P30,000 seed capital, and mentoring support meant to bring these ideas to life.
Representatives from partner schools’ Youth for Environment in Schools Organization, Supreme Secondary Learner Government, Boy Scouts of the Philippines and partner barangays’ Sangguniang Kabataan and Katipunan ng Kabataan participated in YCELS.
Resource speakers from partner organizations included Katherine Mae Sarmiento of Oscar M. Lopez Center; Dr. Louie Tesalona, interim executive director of the Foundation for the Philippine Environment; JR Demecais, cofounder of YGOAL Inc.; Raf Dionisio, president of Make A Difference Earth; Danielle Torralba, information officer at the Climate Change Commission; and Mark Toledo, Abby Amarillento and Maj Miñoza of Abot Tala Community.
Also joining the summit as resource speakers were Ged Cajucom, First Gen vice president; and Joshua Reyes, acting head of plant operations of First Gen’s hydro power plants in Nueva Ecija.
(Story by: Joel Gaborni)
