The future of our planet lies with the youth of today. In an effort to cultivate a cohort of student ambassadors to become youth leaders operating with a compassionate systems framework, the Center for Systems Awareness has launched a global youth leadership strategy centered on the 17 World Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Around the world, each of the compassionate systems hubs will host youth ambassador groups. Thus far, youth leadership groups have launched in Denmark and Indonesia with more being planned in the near future.

The program began with a premise that it is critical to empower youth and provide tools and strategies to think in a radically different way about complex issues relative to much of today’s global leadership (and particularly lack of global leadership). These efforts, we hope, will lead to more young people engaging in conversation around the World goals and through that not only enhance perspective taking and lead conversations focused on the same set of complex challenges, using the same tools and practices across various cultures, and through that create a stronger foundation for the leadership of tomorrow, where we will all face an exponentially more complex and interconnected world.

To support the budding community of student leaders, youth coaches, led by Gustav Boell, are working directly with youth ambassadors in various hubs to build capacity in the compassionate systems framework, using the same tools and practices that are shared with teachers, school leaders, and organizational leaders. These youth ambassadors will then facilitate the sharing of these tools and practices in their schools and local communities to support a stronger understanding of compassionate systems, of the SDGs and the necessary collective and collaborative efforts to achieve them.

The student ambassador program is a blended learning model and young people from across different cultures and different sites in the world have an opportunity to connect and share their work and reflections.