A Challenge to My Generation: Stop Talking, Start Listening

It was a great privilege to share a stage recently with Amarachukwu (Amara) Ifeji , a young woman born in Nigeria who grew up in Maine. Amara is now a National Geographic Young Explorer, a Marshall Scholar preparing to study at the University of Oxford and, by appointment of her governor, a member of her state’s Climate Council.

Amara and I kicked off a discussion on intergenerational dialogue at the Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit in Washington, D.C. Amara is an inspiring young leader whose work, research and advocacy has already spanned topics from climate and environmental justice to the nexus of environment, conflict and gender. All of this began for her as a child, working alongside her grandfather in his garden and then, as a high school student, leading a project on healthy water sheds. (I had to admit that while in high school I primarily kicked around a soccer ball while waiting for ski season to begin in Minnesota—sadly, not really an early start to trying to improve the world).

Amara and I closed our conversation by asking what each of our generations needed from the other. Amara’s answer was very practical: Open more opportunities, she said, for a broader group of young people to gain the experiences they will need to lead. For instance, companies and nonprofits need to pay their interns so more students can afford to gain experience.

I said my generation needs to not only hear youth voices on critical global issues like climate change, but also be inspired by their actions—actions like she took as a high school student and has taken since. Learning more about what young people are doing—not just what they saying—will inspire us to try to keep up and do more ourselves.

My conversation with Amara certainly helped me. In my view, we need more of this kind of intergenerational conversation. We have so much to learn from one another. Some of that learning will take place in the next few days as the United Nations hosts the Summit of the Future in New York.?The summit will rally governments, the private sector and others to better manage the challenges we face today and those in our collective future. We can’t have that kind of conversation without ensuring young people are at the table.

UNICEF will host an event alongside the summit focused on intergenerational responsibility to bring together youth and global leaders to discuss the critical changes needed in education and society to foster green skills and create green jobs to ensure young people have opportunities to put their hands and feet to work to create a just and sustainable transition to a cleaner world.

These events create important spaces for intergenerational dialog, but my generation has a lot of work to do to show those who are coming up that we want to listen and we want their involvement.

My team at UNICEF USA recently joined with The Harris Poll to survey young people in this country about whether they believe their voices are heard and their participation is wanted. We found that 53 percent of young people surveyed felt excluded from the U.S. political process; 73 percent said their opinions do not matter to elected officials; 81 percent said people in positions of power do not care about what young people have to say. Those are numbers all going in the wrong direction.?

Here’s a challenge to my fellow leaders, whether in government, the private sector or civil society: Spend more time with the Amaras of the world, and you will be desperate to hear more from them. Their ideas, the actions they have already taken and their visions for a better future are inspiring.

In my experience, we get more than we give when we engage with the younger generation.?

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