Speaker
Celina Mankarios
Founder of Etherea and Youth Social Impact
Miss World International Canada
National Youth Ambassador of Canada
Celina is a social entrepreneur, Non-profit founder, National Youth Ambassador of Canada, model and pageant queen with multiple titles including Miss World International Canada for her humanitarian work. She has led hundreds of youth across the globe to fundraise nearly $10, 000 for charities and hosted international campaigns in partnership with organizations, Ivy League professors, government officials and renowned activists to create innovative solutions and new governmental policies that solve the United Nations’ SDGs including climate change, world hunger and gender equality. With government funding, she managed the implementation of the ‘Changemaker Course’ in high school curriculums which is centralized on equipping youth with the knowledge/resources necessary to pitch solutions to pressing world issues. Celina has also been working on launching a new app this February that guides youth to “create their own utopia on Earth” with their dual focus on personal development and global citizenship.
As a dedicated vegan, Celina is currently working on a national campaign to implement plant-based meals and education in elementary and high schools nationwide, in collaboration with teachers across Canada. Through empathy building/ social justice workshops for students and lesson trainings for teachers, she has led her team in helping fight against climate change, animal cruelty and the health crisis through plant-based living
Abstract
Youth mobilization is essential in tackling the international climate crisis, given their power and responsibility as the future generation.
However, despite the surge of global climate action, there is a large statistical gap between the number of youth who believe in climate change, those that fear climate change and those that take action to help stop the issue. This gap is primarily attributed to youth’s conditioned lack of urgency/empathy, lack of role models, inability to measure their impact, inaccessibility or limited education of opportunities and/or suppressed fear to live in society. In order to tackle the underlying issue of youth empowerment, there is a 3 milestone framework that should be implemented, which has had enormous success for many youth programs, organizations, schools and virtual communities.
Recording