Empowering our generation to love and protect our wild homes
What is the Wild Hometown Movement?
The Wild Hometown Movement is empowering the next generation of environmental leaders to fall in love with and protect our living planet, starting with our own hometowns. We start, support, and connect youth clubs and educational programs across the world that connect young people with nature and empower them as powerful advocates for the future of their community.
- Start: We are inspiring and supporting young people all over the world to start their own groups and initiatives. We've enabled young people to start 10 active Wild Hometown groups in the US, China, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Singapore!
- Support: We provide mentorship and resources for new groups to grow and take meaningful action. In partnership with ALPINE (Academics for Land Protection in New England), we created the Wild Hometown Toolkit, a comprehensive guide to help get your club off the ground.
- Connect: We connect young environmental leaders from around the world with our Vision Board that charts the future of our movement and a Facebook group.
What's our Solution?
Each of our clubs and programs is led by youth, for youth, to inspire and activate our generation through four core activities:
- Connect with local nature—Students get together to go outside whenever they can, forging new friendships alongside a deeper connection to their homes
- Understand our environment and the crisis it faces on a deeply local, rather than abstract level
- Collaborate with diverse actors in our community, including conservation and social justice groups, to build a local, inter-generational, coalition for action that combines the strengths and perspective of each member.
- Lead the potential of young people to be ambassadors for nature and our future. Every person in our clubs can have the chance to connect their own passions and talents with our mission—whether they want to create art, write op-eds, or teach others about the life around them.
Learn about our groups
- WildMidd is an award-winning Middlebury College that brings together college students, community organizations and local youth to explore, celebrate, and protect Vermont's wild places
- WildWorcester, our chapter in Worcester MA, recently brought together 264 community members for a socially distanced biodiversity survey across the entire city!
- Young Leaders for Wild Florida is a two-week summer camp hosted by the Alachua Conservation Trust that empowers teens as Florida's next generation of environmental leaders
- Our three student clubs in Alachua County, Florida, collaborate with Young Leaders for Wild Florida, the Gainesville NAACP, and other community groups to urge for conservation action and inspire community solidarity
- We're collaborating with the online education platform Edmodo to organize a virtual conservation-themed summer camp for over 3,000 students across the world in July of 2020
How can I get Involved?
- If you are a young person who wants to start a group or take action in your community in any way, download our toolkit and reach out to opsychas@middlebury.edu
- If you're a professional environmentalist or social justice advocate, don't hesitate to reach out to see how you can get involved or how we can help you reach more young people
- If you are an educator, we have a rich environmental education and social change based curriculum with lesson plans and many guest speakers who can inspire your students and meet and exceed curriculum goals
- Join the Wild Hometown Movement email newsletter and learn about how young people can continue "move the needle" on conservation and social change around the world. Together we are building a world together that we want our children to inherit.
- Stay up-to-date with the Wild Hometown Movement on our Facebook Page!