Saying goodbye is never easy | Farewell article

Perhaps one of the most meaningful ways YEE helps promote youth leadership is simply by being an entirely youth-led and independent organisation. Young people coming together to organise, fundraise, manage, learn… I’ve often said, YEE is one of the best things that could have happened to me this early on in my career and tertiary education. I was given real responsibility and a real say in organisational discussions. At 19, I had my first attempt at a recruiting process – interviews and all. At 20, I was already learning to write project proposals and edit budgets. At 21, I got to experience an international climate conference and manage our entire social media strategy surrounding it. At 22, I got to have many more attempts at recruiting and helping grow our communications department. Very few other work environments would have entrusted me with such opportunities and responsibilities. I will carry these lessons with me throughout my entire professional career, and in my private life as well. 

A thank you is in order

I cannot reflect on these past three years without gratitude. YEE has allowed me to grow only insofar as I was inspired – and boy, I was surrounded by inspirational people. Firstly, a thank you to Nathan Méténier who took me under his wing as I joined as a volunteer and shared his dream of the Advocacy Working Group with me. From that first generation of the AWG with 6 volunteers, we are now working with over 10 volunteers on 9 portfolios and multiple fully-funded projects. Nathan has always been someone with a vision and the right amount of faith and optimism to make that happen. Thank you to Tetiana Stadnyk, who was Secretary General during the majority of my time at YEE, and whose steadfast and gentle leadership I hope to emulate one day. Thank you to Pegah, the new SecGen, for her playful comments and for always driving us to aim higher. Thank you to Eva, for making communications fun even during each 10AM Monday this past year. And thank you to Paola, Anna, Emma, Agnes, Clara and so many more names I cannot list – people whose energy and friendship was a very meaningful part of my time at YEE!

How does the story end?

I started out at YEE as a summer volunteer in 2020, learning how to use Zoom and being introduced to the huge world of environmental advocacy, as the Covid crisis kept spreading and I was stuck in my bedroom. I had only just finished my first year of university, half of it online and had no idea where I was headed. The state of the world was ever-changing and scary. Now, I am in the first year of my master’s, fully dedicating myself to studying environmental policy, hoping to specialise in environmental migration and climate adaptation strategies. Now, I have worked part-time for YEE for a year and a half, still behind a screen but thankfully with multiple occasions to have met my colleagues in person. The state of the world is still scary. The temperatures are getting hotter – I saw not a single drop of snow this winter and watched the fields drain of colour as they became brittle from the heat waves this summer. There is still a lot of work to do. As I leave YEE, I will hopefully use everything I have learned and apply it to new horizons and challenges. I can’t wait to see what else the youth environmental movement will get up to.