YOUthdecide – voting starts this week

Calling all young people to vote in the Youth Referendum YOUthdecide.

Youth Decide '09 is a national youth vote on climate change. The Australian Youth Climate Coalition is giving Australia’s 4.8 million young people the chance to vote on what kind of world they want to inherit. It’s an opportunity to tell the government the sort of targets you want them to be talking about at the climate talks in Copenhagen later this year.

Part of raising awareness included the youth summit, Powershift, where young people across Australia came together to learn about the latest climate science and the action required to seriously act on climate change.

I sponsored a group of students from local secondary school, Sherbrooke Community School, to attend Powershift as well as two of the Shire’s young leaders, Nerida Lennon and Jaymie Rudd.

Here’s some feedback I got from the students at Sherbrooke Community School.

“We spoke to people from other high schools from our region on what their school is doing to be sustainable. We concluded that our school was doing pretty well but we can still do better.

In my group I said our school has got:
a 5.2 kW photovoltaic solar system
tank water used in the toilets
a specialised bin system where all food scraps are composted and paper and recyclable material is recycled
two sheep who mow the lawns
a developing fruit tree orchard
a newly built chook shed
revegetation strategy
a new conservation area
a plan to eradicate weeds in the school
a vegie patch transforming into a Koorie garden
and an enviro group to make these things happen

And a girl from a prominent Melbourne private school said WOW you have a lot of things at your school we planted daises at the front of our school.

That really told me something. Nothing against private schools well but our school totally kicked some butt when it came to sustainability.”

Great work Sherbrooke, your actions for a sustainable future set a benchmark for other schools to follow!