One climate change network that you should join to build a career on the international level

Vol. 25, Issue 11, 02 December 2022

Looking for ways to get into the international sustainable development scene? Want to develop your career in the United Nations and its agencies? Curious how to become a delegate to the high-level events? Search no further.

I am Daria Chekalskaia, a graduate of Xamk in Environmental Engineering, currently coordinating the production of online micro courses at Edufication. I have been a delegate to several UN Conferences, representing Xamk, UN Constituencies and voices of youth on the global level. I have completed a professional internship at the World Bank’sClimate Investment Funds and stayed engaged with the climate finance space through consultancy and volunteer work.

As part of my engagement with Xamk’s Talent Boost project, I am excited to share the opportunities which have transformed my professional life in the hopes that you will also find them useful. We need all the specialists we can get engaged in the climate change space, so consider joining the following professional network!

What can membership in the international associations as YOUNGO give you?

Have up-to-date knowledge of your industry and keep abreast with the latest changes and trends.
Have access to networking and great opportunities.
Membership in such groups also shows your engagement and passion, which is valued by employers.

The main international body in the field of climate is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In addition to states and their official representatives, the convention has stakeholders in civil society as well: associations of farmers, trade unions, scientists, indigenous peoples, businesses, and, of course, young people. The latter group is called YOUNGO – Children and Youth constituency to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

As a YOUNGO member you have access to:

Closed sessions of the UNFCCC, both educational and those where you can express the position of youth on a particular issue.
Participation in international conferences as a youth climate representative. Members of the working group form an elected delegation and prepare a statement that represents the youth position.
Publications: working groups create reports that represent the views of young people on certain issues. It’s a cool way to get involved in research and become an author of such a report.
Organization of high-level events. YOUNGO representatives are invited as guests to conferences, meetings and webinars.
Opportunities. Because YOUNGO is an official UNFCCC group, it is the primary source of many climate opportunities, and some opportunities are only available to group members. Opportunities may appear in the chats of a particular working group or can be sent to all YOUNGO members in an email newsletter.

How does YOUNGO work?

YOUNGO has a member base of 200 youth-non-governmental organizations and 5500+ individuals. The members are connected via the official mailing list of YOUNGO, which also serves as a moderated communication channel for all standard communication within YOUNGO.

YOUNGO also has working groups, each dealing with specific aspects of climate change in the UNFCCC negotiations and activities, to ensure that the perspectives of young and future generations are included in multi stakeholder decision-making processes.

YOUNGO structure and examples of Working groups

These groups have separate channels of communication, which can be WhatsApp chat, Slack, and even a Facebook groups where participants organize their own work. You can join a work group you are interested in and connect to current tasks or take a leadership position and propose your own initiative or project.

In essence, you volunteer your time to support the activities of Working Groups and in exchange get the access to the perks mentioned above.

Lifehacks:

• Set up notifications in YOUNGO’s google mailing list to receive email notifications once a day or once a week. That way you can get a list of opportunities when it’s convenient for you

• Choose no more than 1-2 groups to start. Find out what issues they are working on and what open projects they have. You can always find out this information if you find Contact Points (contact persons) of the working group

• Fit in gradually and make the time you really have. It’s not cool when someone in a work group promises to help and then disappears (it happens, yes)

To have access to even more cool opportunities you can join YOUNGO, it’s absolutely free and only requires filling out a google form (link below)

What YOUNGO gave me for the year I have been part of it

I joined YOUNGO to expose myself to the international agenda in climate change, better understand my place in the international community and find out what value I could provide to others. I decided that I could spend about 1-2 hours a week volunteering for the organization.

As a volunteer, I supported the group with design capacity to hold Webinars on climate finance, and also supported the development of Climate Finance Academy
I build a cooperation between the organization I was working with and youth groups, so YOUNGO could get opportunity to influence decision-making in the international company.
I traveled to Dubai (as a panelist at Dubai Expo2020 and G-stic conference), Paris (as a speaker at Pre-summit Transforming Education) and Sharm-el Sheikh (as an Observer to 27th Conference of Parties) to represent Xamk, youth and other stakeholders in UNFCCC & YOUNGO-facilitated events. And yes, the trips were partly sponsored, I just went through the initial selection process within YOUNGO.
This has also led me to represent YOUNGO at the United Nations University and RCE Network Youth Day event devoted to biodiversity, where I presented my work on regenerative agriculture.