• Collective Activities are led by youth and adults together – not individually

• Connected Activities embody interdependence and model it among youth and adults

• Empowering Youth voice is a driving force throughout activities

• Equitable Adults recognize young people have differing backgrounds that require different approaches

• Focused Activities are appropriately outcome-driven

• Healthy Respectful disagreement, speaking up, and other avenues that equalize disparities between youth and adults are at the core of the activity

• Learning Young people gain skills, knowledge and tools to be effect agents of change

• Mutually Beneficial Young people and adults acknowledge each other’s dreams, actions, outcomes and reflections

• Relevant Activities are responsive to the lives of young people

• Responsible Adults and youth develop and sustain their capacity to be “response-able”

• Substantive Activity design and outcomes are designed to impact individuals, organizations, communities and society

• Self-Motivated Young people feel driven to participate

Providing these guidelines or devising their own can become an essential function of any youth group or youth-serving organization that seeks to engage young people in social change. These Principles can serve as a guide for the development of new programs and the evaluation of current activities.

The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education is the national leader in the Educating for Sustainability (EfS) movement, providing training, resources and network leadership for hundreds of schools across the country. My work with them and Communities for Learning in 2007-08 led to the development of these Principles.