This is Not a Drill
We are a Western Mass-based, youth-led climate action group with a mission to empower more young people to add their voices to the climate conversation.
Environmental Justice
The climate crisis is a human rights issue.
In a central part of our mission, we emphasize the fact that the climate crisis is going to affect everyone and everything. And this is undeniably true. However, a side of this same narrative that we hear less often is how the environmental and health consequences of climate change do not affect everyone equally. This crisis is disproportionately impacting marginalized communities including women, youth, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, other abled individuals, and neighborhoods of lower socioeconomic status. The fight for environmental justice works to draw attention to this gap and to ensure that everyone affected by this crisis has every basic human right including not only access to clean water, clean air, power, and shelter, but also a leading, central voice in this fight. YCAN is committed to making this movement more intersectional by starting with our own minds and working our way up to a real social change. By disrupting these systems of oppression and discrimination, YCAN is committed to fighting for not only the protection of our planet but also for all of her people.
Creative Climate Action
Art has always been a form of rebellion.
As creative young people, we plan to utilize art in all our work to make our message more impactful and to reach a broader audience. We know from experience that art is a valuable tool when it comes to sparking social change, inspiring collective action, and connecting a community behind a shared mission. We believe that art has a beautiful way of opening up the world of activism to a new audience. In order to move forward toward real system change, we need to get creative in our efforts to demand direct action. We believe that we need a radical solution to solve a disaster of this proportion.
Youth Empowerment
We are a generation of activists that have grown up in a world on fire. And we do not have the time or the luxury to sit back and watch it burn.
For young people today the climate crisis is the ultimate issue. For young people today there was never a time when we weren’t aware of these issues or when we weren’t worried about the future of our planet and the future of generations to come. Young people understand that we are fighting for our future. We understand that the climate crisis is a here and now issue. We understand that it is our responsibility to encourage others to think bigger. The main mission of YCAN is to provide a platform for people to be loud. To provide a space for young people to let others know that we are angry with our leaders’ response to this crisis. We are angry that there are still so many people out there ignoring the science and we are demanding action now before it is too late. This is a space for us each to use our unique, creative voice to make a ruckus and disrupt the system and, of course, feel safe and accepted while doing so.