Opportunity to make connections with passionate youth around the world: an Invitation – World Environmental Education Congress
An invitation has been extended to Aotearoa New Zealand teachers and secondary students to be involved in Youth Leading the World 13th WEEC 2026 (World Environmental Education Congress) on 21-24 September 2026. This event is being hosted by AAEE (Australian Association of Environmental Education) at the Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre, Australia.
Building engagement towards local action and world connections
The Youth Participation Steering Committee (a sub-committee of the WEEC 2026 Australian Local Planning Committee) is proposing three streams that provide youth participation in WEEC 2026.
Secondary students and teachers are invited to participate in Stream 1 as preparation in the lead up which is commencing this year. This encourages engagement in facilitation training online to build skills and competence to lead local collaboration and action. This then feeds into Streams 2 and 3 as part of the 2026 WEEC.
Lead up youth workshops in 2024
Stream 1 of the programme starts with Youth Leading the World (YLTW) Facilitator Training 3 x 3 hour online sessions Australia, Pacific (incl NZ), Americas 7-8-9 October 8.30-11.30am Sydney time (AEDT) 10:30 am – 1:30 pm NZST
This series of Annual Global Online Youth Leading the World (YLTW) Facilitator Training conducted by OzGREEN in multiple time zones in the lead up to the conference. Local YLTW youth congresses and local YLTW youth-led Community Forums will then be conducted by Facilitators in their own region. Young people will then implement and document action projects, with regular check-ins on progress.
In 2025 – 2026 there also will be training sessions offered (dates and times tbc). Stay in the loop by subscribing at www.ozgreen.org/subscribe
Youth Stream 2 WEEC Day 2 – Youth Summit 2026
A one-day Youth Summit will be held on Day 2 of 13th WEEC (22 September 2026), facilitated by trained youth facilitators. This event will include presentations from global and local youth outlining their visions, concerns and achievements. Following this, a participatory process will take place to prioritise concerns, develop change strategies and actions that youth will take going forward. This will be then synthesised into a report and presented to the whole conference on Day 3 (23 September 2026).
Youth Stream 3 WEEC Day 3 & Day 4 2026
The 13th WEEC Day 3 (23 September 2026) will feature a report back from the Day 2Youth Summit. There will also be presentations by young people and youth organisations about their projects and initiatives.
WEEC Day 4 youth activities (24 September 2026) will be designed by the YEEC Youth Advisory Team in association with YEEC Working Group & WEEC Steering Committee.
Youth Leading the World (YLTW)
Youth Leading the World is an OzGREEN initiative, established in 2009. It is a participatory transformative sustainability leadership program that enables young people to find their voice and become active participants in creating fairer futures. Youth leadership, social innovation and community driven change are key. OzGREEN trains local people to facilitate YLTW in their own region (training 1200 facilitators globally to date). Through YLTW, OzGREEN is openly sharing the skills and experience gained over 30 years of the delivery of recognized excellence in transformative sustainability leadership programs.
Please check out the information in the flyer YLTW-2024-WEEC-Flyer-2 and booklet YLTW-2024-WEEC-Booklet-3 and contact Helen Tyas Tunggal helentyastunggal@gmail.com if you have any questions.