In 2024, I attended the Local Conference of Youth (LCOY) as a delegate for the 1st time and, through my experience, saw a lack of art, music, mindfulness, and creativity that I sought to address. After that year, I quickly got involved as a lead organizer, helping to bring art, music, and mindfulness to the conference for the 1st time in 2025. The Local Conference of Youth (LCOY) is the official United Nations Framework Climate Change Constituency (UNFCCC-YOUNGO) Youth-endorsed national youth climate conference and works to advance Environmental policy through the creation of the National Youth Statement (NYS), which is a framework for how local and state governments here in the U.S. can adopt policy to advance climate-based solutions. This NYS is then used to inform the Global Youth Statement (GYS) at the Global Conference of Youth (COY), otherwise known as the largest environmental youth conference in the world, which happens before the Conference of the Parties (COP), which is the UN-endorsed and largest environmental conference in the world where environmental policy is negotiated on to be implemented more broadly. Throughout this experience, I am grateful to have been able to learn from so many incredible environmental activists, organizers, creatives, elders, and community members – walking away with new, profound experience on how to organize nationally to advance environmental policy goals.
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