Support young people’s calls for action on climate justice

Sign the petition urging the Australian Government to demonstrate their commitment to gender-transformative education to advance climate justice.

Raise Youth voices. Sign the petition.

Dear Australian Government,

I am signing this petition in solidarity with girls, young women and young people from around the world, who are calling for gender transformative education to be recognised as a key climate solution.

As a donor country, Australia has a key role to play in both committing to climate education nationally, as well as integrating gender transformative education to advance climate justice through the Australian Aid program.

I urge you to show your commitment to this issue by supporting gender-transformative education and youth leadership through the Australian Aid program and Australia Pacific Climate Partnership, by investing in approaches that:

  • incorporate climate into all aspects of the core curriculum across 12 years of education and expand beyond climate science to include social/justice and political dimensions, sustainable development and a human rights framing
  • break down the cultural norms and traditional power structures that serve as barriers to girls’ leadership, and empower them to hold their local communities and governments to account
  • adapt and translate climate information to local contexts and languages and different population groups: involving real life stories and examples that are locally relevant and include indigenous knowledge
  • take an intersectional approach that leaves no child behind, and ensure all perspectives are included
  • facilitate critical thinking, learning and responsibility, with skills to support confidence building, data analysis, negotiation/debating, creativity, systems thinking, activism and feminist leadership
  • are action-oriented, share key information and opportunities on climate policy processes and enable young people to participate in decision-making and capacity growing environments
  • invest in teachers and educators – through training and materials and by supporting their wellbeing – so they can lead and facilitate gender transformative climate education
  • strive to achieve a culture of freedom and not dominance or oppression over the people and the planet.

 

Transform Education (hosted by United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative), including Malala Fund fellows and supported by Plan International, has developed a youth-led statement of recommendations with a feminist lens. Its aim is to explain the current gaps in climate education and the value of a gender transformative education to advance climate justice. Because #EducationShiftsPower.

What is gender-transformative education?

Gender-transformative education acknowledges the structural inequalities that prevent girls from accessing equal opportunities in their families, communities and educational settings, and seeks to address these barriers.

It does this by outlining targets and standards for gender equality in all of these contexts, and calls for the allocation of resources and political investment to meet them.

Gender transformative education can equip girls and all young people with the skills and knowledge needed to tackle the climate crisis, claim and exercise their rights, and empower them to be leaders and decision-makers.

We are urgently calling on our government to act now.