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Empathy to Impact is a podcast designed for educators dedicated to global citizenship education. We explore themes of sustainability, service learning, student leadership, and community engagement, empowering students to create a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.
While educators grasp the “why” and “what” of global citizenship, this podcast delves into the “how”. Through engaging storytelling and student voices, we provide authentic connections to curriculum, and showcase practical tools and frameworks that you can implement in your classroom.
By viewing learning experiences through the lens of Empathy to Impact, we can inspire students to take meaningful steps toward becoming global citizens and transform the culture of education in our schools.
Join us as we amplify the voices and stories of students who take ownership of their learning and make a difference in their communities.
This podcast is brought to you by Inspire Citizens.
Scott Jamieson: Welcome to the Empathy to Impact podcast.
Scott Jamieson: My name is Scott Jameson, and I am visiting some changemakers from Dusseldorf, Germany.
Scott Jamieson: who, just this month, early part of March 2026, hosted a Changemaker Conference at their school, and we are going to hear all about the work that they did leading up to that conference, what inspired them to be the hosts of a Changemaker Conference.
Scott Jamieson: And what they learned, well, they were at this conference connecting with about 250 other changemakers from across the region, many, many different schools, coming together to think about how we might work towards a more just, equitable, joyful, sustainable future.
Scott Jamieson: So, I am so excited to welcome my three guests today. I'm gonna pass over to them for some quick introductions.
Julia: I'm Julia, I'm in grade 11, and I was or am one of the lead student planners for the Changemaker Conference 2026.
Melania: Hi, I am Melania, I'm also in 11th grade, and I'm also… I'm sorry, am I meant to say the same thing?
Scott Jamieson: You… it… Yeah, I don't know. It's up to you.
Scott Jamieson: You can do something.
Melania: Our names, because we'll also say that we're in 11th grade and we're the student plan is.
Scott Jamieson: Alright. Maybe we can start over, and you guys say, you know, where we're… and Julia, you just introduced, hey, we're all in 11th grade, we're all… and I'm Julia, and this… and, you know, and you guys can just jump in after.
Julia: Maybe I'll go, I'm Melania. Oh, sorry, I'm Julio.
Melania: And then we'll just say, and we're…
Scott Jamieson: Lovely, yeah, so someone else can kind of finish that off. I like that idea. All right.
Scott Jamieson: Okay. Whenever you're ready.
Julia: Julia… oh, sorry.
Julia: I'm Julia.
Melania: I'm Melania.
gabrysia: And I'm Gabriella.
Julia: And we're grade 11 students at the International School of Dusseldorf, and we are the lead student planners for Changemakers 2026.
Scott Jamieson: So, what does it mean to be a lead planner? What kind of work does that entail when you're hosting a conference like this at your school?
Melania: So we worked in a core team, the three of us and three adult mentors, so our teachers.
Melania: And we work together to organize all of our speakers, to get all the school delegations to come to our conference, organizing everything they might need, and kind of deciding what type of atmosphere, what tone we want to set at our conference, and what message we want to pass along to our guests.
Julia: And I think…
Julia: Just being a part of the core team means having the most oversight over the whole conference, so if there were certain people that you wanted to ask about everything, if you wanted to know everything about the conference, it would be one of us, three, or six in the core team.
Scott Jamieson: So, tell me about the planning, getting started with this conference. So, I met all of you in Budapest at the Change Mayor Conference in 2025, and you guys took over the responsibility to be the hosts in 2026.
Scott Jamieson: What has happened since that conference leading up to your conference? How have you gone from being conference participants to having this amazing event and go so well at your school?
gabrysia: I mean, it.
Julia: I kind of started… oh, sorry, do you want to go?
gabrysia: Where you can go.
Julia: Okay, I'll go, sorry. It started at the conference already, so we kind of went there knowing we were going to host the next Changemakers conference, so we spent a lot of our time just
Julia: analyzing the conference at Budapest and seeing what we need to do, how the conference flow goes, who the speakers were, and then sort of adapting it to a format that we wanted.
gabrysia: Like, next steps, we're coming up with a theme for our own conference, and choosing which speakers we do want, especially from the ones we saw before at the other conference, or just in general, other people we might know.
gabrysia: Hmm.
Melania: Yeah, it started very, very broadly, like Gabby said, like, choosing a theme, figuring out how we can build off the conference in Budapest, but also making it our own.
Melania: So, already at the conference, we were interacting with speakers and networking there, and then when we got back to Dusseldorf, we started, like, just brainstorming, like, oh, in our, like, craziest, best-case scenario conference, what speakers would we have?
Melania: Like, who… I think… yeah, there were different people who came up. I think one of them was David Attenborough, and then we looked up his hourly rates, and…
Melania: But yeah, but we were just thinking…
Melania: How can we make this… what would be the best conference for us as attendees?
Melania: And then, we worked from there.
Julia: Yeah, and how that kind of looked like on paper…
Julia: we literally, at the Budapest conference, just brainstormed all ideas possible. I think I wrote them down in, like, a notebook, and then once we got back to Dusadorf, we organized it into this Google Doc, this master document, into little sections, just so we could keep those ideas.
Julia: And then most of the planning started the beginning of our grade 11 year, so we went to the conference in grade 10 in March, and then, so August of grade 11 is where the work really started. We sat down, we looked at the document, and then, from then on, decided logistics, and I think the first thing
Julia: we really did was hotel and speakers, just because there is a more tight deadline on that, because you're dealing with external people and a lot of money, and so we wanted to make sure that we got that down first, aside from theme.
Melania: Yeah, I think also speakers kind of set the tone for the conference, because our conference was organized around
Melania: four strands or sections of change-making. So, we had environment, economy, society, and well-being.
Melania: And when we were choosing speakers, we wanted to make sure that we address all four of those areas in who we bring in to speak. So, that was very important to plan ahead of time as much as we could, to make sure that everything… that we had a balanced conference as well.
Julia: Yeah, and just because you get such a diverse group of people coming to Changemakers conferences, so we really wanted to make sure all our bases were covered, and that there was something for everyone there.
Scott Jamieson: I think that's so important to recognize that everyone has their different entry points into being a changemaker, and their personal why of getting into this kind of work.
Scott Jamieson: And it's not easy work. It takes resilience and perseverance to be a changemaker. You know, if these problems were easy to solve, we probably would have done it already.
Scott Jamieson: We're looking at complex, difficult issues, and I think it's so cool when young people can be thinking about how they can design solutions to make our communities, make our world just a little bit better.
Scott Jamieson: Thinking about some of those special guests, one of them I know very well was Sophie Pico from our Inspire Citizens team, and she speaks very highly of you guys as conference organizers, and had such an amazing experience herself at the conference. Who were some of the other speakers speaking to the different
Scott Jamieson: Points of the compass in this… for your conference?
Melania: Okay, I mean, we had…
Melania: originally, many speakers that we wanted to bring, and most of them came to the conference, I think someone who we connected with very, very early. I mean, yeah, it's Jennifer Brandsberg Engelman from Regenerative Economics.
Melania: who unfortunately couldn't actually make it to the conference because she was doing something very, very important in New Zealand regarding curriculum changes.
Melania: But she sent us a video of her talk, and we really appreciate that. We actually connected with Jennifer, Julia, and I a couple years ago at a conference we attended in Luxembourg, and when we started planning our conference, we were immediately saying, we have to get Jennifer, because her message is so powerful, especially because I think
Melania: for both of us, when we first went to that previous conference, I think it was…
Melania: IESL, so the International Education Sustainability Leadership Summit.
Melania: for us, sustainability was about sustainability. Like, the green movement, you know.
Melania: everything like that, and we wouldn't really think about economy as a part of sustainability and change-making. And that was such an eye-opening talk, and yeah, she was such a huge person for us, and we really wanted her to come.
Julia: Yeah, so we had a mix of speakers that we've met before, and also what we wanted to emphasize is bringing in
Julia: people who we know from Dusseudov, and more local or, like, school-affiliated, just because those are people that
Julia: the other students have definitely never heard from, and so that's why we had, Professor Dr. Michael Koch, who's a professor of sustainability and economics in Navy.
Julia: And he is an ISD parent as well. And so we also had some ISD alumni also that we invited to speak, so we had Romy.
Julia: Who had a startup for carpooling at her university, and so we wanted to invite her, because we thought maybe people don't hear enough from university students, and maybe people who are closer to their age, and that might be more…
Julia: tangible, I guess? To see that?
Julia: If that makes sense. And then we also had a…
Julia: Another alum from ISD, Dr. Valentine Rice Woolever, who works in sustainability consulting with McKinsey.
Julia: Yep.
gabrysia: I have a question. Would you like us to, like, name all of the speakers?
Scott Jamieson: No, it could just be highlights. It's okay. I don't think, we don't need to name everybody, but just some of the highlights for you guys.
Scott Jamieson: Gabriella, did you have someone you wanted to shout out, or…
gabrysia: Julia already specified some of the cool ones.
Scott Jamieson: That's alright.
Scott Jamieson: I think it sounds like you guys had such a cool, diverse group of speakers, and I think that is really important. And something Julia said about recognizing younger changemakers, I think is really cool, because I think their message really resonates.
Scott Jamieson: that there isn't really an age limit on being able to do this work. It's really about the heart, but also about the skills, and to be able…
Scott Jamieson: to go out and take on a project, and look to do some amazing things, and there are so many young people who are doing such amazing work, and I think it's important to highlight them. I think you're right, I think that message does tend to resonate a little bit more with young people to say, you know, this isn't for another generation's work, this is people in my generation who are already doing this work.
Scott Jamieson: I think that can be really inspirational.
Scott Jamieson: You guys also talked about having that diversity, you know, thinking about the different compass points, nature, economics, society, and well-being.
Scott Jamieson: And you mentioned, too, that economics is not something we often think about, but I think it's a piece that's tied in in so many other ways. I spend a number of years living in Beijing, and there was a lot of air pollution when I was living in the city.
Scott Jamieson: But, if there was a special event, like a big government meeting or a tennis tournament, then the skies were blue, because they could snap their fingers, turn off all the factories, and…
Scott Jamieson: you realize that it's not as much an environmental issue, but an economic issue that's causing this problem. So I think as we get into some of this complexity, we can see things through a different lens. I think that's really important.
Scott Jamieson: So, I want to circle back to your own personal why.
Scott Jamieson: Why is it that you chose to become a changemaker?
Melania: Okay. For me, I think it started around 4th grade, when we… we… I mean, Julie… No.
Melania: when we, I mean, Gabby and I, we joined the green team in fourth grade. Actually, it was led by one of our adult mentors, Mr. Shehan.
Melania: And that was a big deal for us at the time. We didn't think that it would continue until we were in 11th grade or beyond, but at the time, we were, you know, organizing things like recycling bins in our classrooms, so that was called the Yellow Bin Pickup Team.
Melania: And then we organized, like, a vegetarian week at school. Like, I've been vegetarian since I was in second grade, when actually my sister, for a project she did in, like, fifth grade, she was looking into sustainability and the impact of the meat industry on the environment.
Melania: And I think from there, it kind of snowballed. Then later on, when we were in 8th grade, Julia and I joined
Melania: a group called… Julia, was it the future we choose? No, it was the ECO Committee, right? In the senior school, and that's where we worked with a bunch of other teachers, and yeah, just continued from there.
gabrysia: For me, as Melania said, it also began in, like, 4th grade.
gabrysia: Where I was part of the green team and the yellow pickup team as well.
gabrysia: And, as Melania said, it did kind of, like, snowball and just continue on into our older years in the senior school. For me, however, it did stop through, like, 7th grade and upwards a bit, as I had
gabrysia: I was a bit overwhelmed with school, and was more confused, but then recently, when I went to the Budapest Changemaker Conference, it kind of reignited that passion for changemaking and made me want to help more, and be inspired to help with the Changemaker Conference happening at our school.
Julia: Yeah, I think, for me, it might have been 8th grade when I joined the Eco Committee with Melania.
Julia: But there was always sort of that…
Julia: feeling that I needed to take responsibility for something in my community, so even, in earlier grade levels, I was always somehow engaged in the community, maybe not directly in a sustainability lens.
Julia: But just from that feeling that I need to do something to give back to the community that gives so much to me.
Julia: And so that's kind of on a sustainability spectrum, where it started, was in grade 8 with that team, and then, yeah, there was a snowball effect. So we had this really lovely mentor, Dr. Rice, and she essentially just
Julia: emailed us a bunch and said, like, hey, can you do this during lunch? Hey, can you help me with this? And we were so on it. We were glad to help her.
Julia: And that really gave us a feeling that action does make a difference as well, and that there's so much you can do, even in just short little time periods of the day.
Julia: And then that snowballed into going to conferences in Luxembourg, and then eventually the Budapest Changemaker Conference, and then ours.
Scott Jamieson: Thank you so much for sharing your stories. I think that's really inspirational. And for educators who are listening, lean in.
Scott Jamieson: Listen to what these amazing young people are saying.
Scott Jamieson: This is after-school clubs. This is units that we're teaching in school. This is where we plant those seeds. And Julia's talking about this urge, this interest in doing something positive in the community.
Scott Jamieson: But a lot of students don't know what that is.
Scott Jamieson: So, for educators who are listening, this is our job to create these spaces, whether it's an after-school club, a co-curricular program, a unit in your scope and sequence that focuses on the environment, or focuses on economics, or focuses on
Scott Jamieson: Well-being and society, thinking about diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
Scott Jamieson: These are all things that fit within some of the things that we are teaching in school.
Scott Jamieson: And this is where it might lead when we can plant those seeds. We have some amazing young people doing some amazing things because of some of these experiences, being involved in the Yellow Bin Pickup Team in grade 4.
Scott Jamieson: And I always find it so amazing, thinking about how this all gets started, and oftentimes it's just a little thing that some teacher has created a space
Scott Jamieson: for students to be empowered and take ownership of some of this work, and channel some of that desire to do something positive, and push back against some of these negative stories. And it's…
Scott Jamieson: I'm feeling really inspired, just listening to you guys, and seeing where this journey has taken you already, but knowing this is just the beginning as well.
Scott Jamieson: So… I want to shift gears a little bit, and think about the… come back to the conference.
Scott Jamieson: So this conference has been in Frankfurt, it's been in Munich, it's been in Budapest, it's been in Tusseldorf, it's on its way to Latvia next year. So exciting!
Scott Jamieson: Why is it important to have events like this?
Scott Jamieson: To you as a student.
Julia: Sorry, it's gonna be in Lithuania next year.
Scott Jamieson: Oh, I'm sorry.
Scott Jamieson: Let me re-record that. I'm in the same neighborhood, I think. Nope.
Scott Jamieson: And so, Ollie, if you're recording this, make sure we check this out. Ollie's my editor.
Scott Jamieson: And he does a fantastic job.
Scott Jamieson: So…
Scott Jamieson: We were… this conference has been in Frankfurt, in Munich, in Budapest, in Dusseldorf, and next year in Lithuania. So, we see it moving around the region, we see so many young people, this is growing every year, more people being involved. Why is a conference like this important to you as a student?
Melania: I mean, for me, I think…
Melania: this connects also to the four strands. I think well-being goes really unaddressed in change-making, and I think providing such a supportive
Melania: space for young changemakers, especially, to know that even though they're taking on these really difficult things, like, I mean, changemaking can be really difficult when you're tackling such complex problems.
Melania: I think it's really important for us to have that space that we know, oh, we're all in this together, that it's not just me and my small project on a relatively small scale in my city, in my corner of, okay, Europe, for our conferences.
Melania: But that there are so many other people working towards a common goal, and I think it makes us feel less alone in it. Yeah.
gabrysia: For me…
Julia: exactly what?
Julia: Sorry.
gabrysia: There you go, Juliet. I already interrupted you once before.
Julia: Okay, yeah, exactly what Melania said. You don't want to feel alone. I think, especially as a teenager, there's always that element of, like, peer pressure and peer belonging, and you…
Julia: it's kind of uncomfortable being an outsider, and I think that's sometimes the case with these changemaker projects. You feel like you're a minority, maybe not everyone cares, like, why am I using my lunch times
Julia: towards this project instead of hanging out with my friends, right? But then you come to this conference and you see these 200 other students.
Julia: who do the exact same thing, and then you realize what you do do… do do, what you are doing matters, right? And then, it's just very empowering, yeah.
gabrysia: So, I agree with both what Julia and Melania said, but for me, as well, what's important with these changemaker… what I think is important with these changemaker conferences is that it allows students to really collaborate with each other and share their own ideas, inspiring others.
gabrysia: Like, for me, when I went to the Budapest Changemaker Conference, it really inspired me what everyone else was doing.
gabrysia: So, I think that's one of the really important, like, why Change Breaker Conference is so important. It's just because it inspires every other student to make their own change at their own schools and in their own communities.
Scott Jamieson: I love what you guys are all talking about, this idea of community, and collaboration, and being inspired together, but also feeling like we aren't alone. It's really easy.
Scott Jamieson: I'm gonna redo it. It's really easy to feel like we're kind of on an island sometimes. And there's a lot of things that we see on social media, and it's not very good news. And…
Scott Jamieson: it's okay to be anxious about this. It's okay to worry about the future, but if we can do that with other people, and then channel that into action, I think that is where it gets really empowering.
Scott Jamieson: I'm actually hosting a workshop for teachers in… actually, by the time we publish this, it'll have been finished, with my colleagues Sophie and Ivy, talking about just what Melanie is talking about, this
Scott Jamieson: Untalked-about mental health aspect.
Scott Jamieson: of the climate crisis, and how we do feel alone, and we feel strange, that we're… why am I feeling this and no one else is? And the reality is, is that a lot of other people are feeling that, and if we can make those connections.
Scott Jamieson: And we can use that and turn that into action. I think that is such an empowering thing, and being able to do that across schools and across different countries, I think, can be such a cool way to build that community.
Scott Jamieson: And grow our impact, and be inspired together, and say, hey, we're working on a project at our school, someone else is working on a similar project. We might be able to share some resources, or share the journey a little bit. I think that gets so, so exciting.
Scott Jamieson: But, I just read a study, came out of, I believe it was Yale University, That talked about…
Scott Jamieson: How young people are one… are probably one of the most impacted groups by climate change.
Scott Jamieson: Because they have so much ahead to be worried about.
Scott Jamieson: And how things… we don't know, the future's so uncertain right now. And I think space like this, to…
Scott Jamieson: Just be able to talk about that and share the feelings that we're feeling about an uncertain future is really, really important.
Scott Jamieson: not just that, but also having these opportunities to learn from some of these amazing guests, and learning from other students who are running workshops and have had a little bit more experience as changemakers. So many cool things coming out of a conference like this.
Scott Jamieson: So…
Scott Jamieson: You guys are the main organizers, kind of the core team, kind of putting this together, but this is a lot.
Scott Jamieson: How did you delegate responsibility? How did you find your people at your school to get on board with this idea and support you in your work?
Julia: So we definitely didn't do it alone. We had a lot of help from other student sub-teams, and so we had a tech team, we had a food team, we had a facilities team, then we had a welcome team, a video team, and a hype team, so there was a lot of other input, right?
Julia: Well, initially it was just a Google Form, to be honest, that we sent out to our whole school to find people who are interested, but it's also just…
Julia: Some people that we knew we could trust, and who've been doing a lot of change-making that we roped in.
Melania: Yeah, we have amazing students at our school who are so…
Melania: talented in specific things. For example, we had some of our friends helping us out with logo design, with, yeah, website design. We were reaching out to specific people at a certain point, because we knew
Melania: yeah, like Julia said, the most important thing in this… organizing this conference is having that level of trust for people, that, oh, this is our project, like, all together, and this is your piece of it, so…
Melania: We trust you to do a good job with it.
Scott Jamieson: I love that, thinking about how do we empower the members of our team to be leaders and take ownership of this, but also it sounds like you guys are thinking about the different hidden superpowers of different people in your community with all these different tasks.
Scott Jamieson: One of those that I got to see leading up to the conference was a video you created. How did that come together?
Julia: So, we had our video team that existed purely for that video, that conference trailer, and so it started with a few little break time meetings, and
Julia: we weren't there for the whole process, other than just our scenes, but a lot of those, I guess, more B-roll shots and intro scenes were filmed by the video team students with the help of Mr. DeHart, who kind of organized them, and…
Julia: I lost my train of thought.
Scott Jamieson: That's okay, we're not live?
Julia: Yeah.
Julia: And so…
Julia: Yeah, it started with sort of a storyboard and us telling them what we wanted. I think also, as well… it's kind of a while back, but…
Julia: we had a script ready for them with everything that was needed, and then scenes were kind of built around that. I think we used some digital storyboarding tools.
Julia: And a lot of the students on the video team do have more filming experience, because I think they have taken some film classes at ISD, or sort of digital design classes.
Julia: We also got a lot of support from other teachers, so our music teacher helped set up the microphones, and we had an amazing student who edited all the clips together, and even though we were nagging him on very little specific details, he pushed through and had patience with us.
Julia: To produce a really nice video.
Scott Jamieson: I thought that was super cool as a way to get people excited about the conference, and introduce people to your campus, and give them an idea of why they needed to be at this event.
Scott Jamieson: And speaking of that, what was it like? You have all this preparation, you guys have been thinking about this conference since 2025 in Budapest?
Scott Jamieson: You start this work at the beginning of your grade 11 school year, and this happens all the way in March. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes.
Scott Jamieson: What was it like when it actually all came together and happened?
Scott Jamieson: What were some of your highlights and experiences?
gabrysia: Honestly, it was a very surreal moment, because we've been planning for it for such a long time that when it finally happened, it was kind of odd that we had so many students here, and we knew most of these students from, like, workshop forms and other forms, and it was just a very surreal moment.
gabrysia: And… but it was also just amazing to see everyone there. It was a bit stressful when all the students suddenly started coming into the school all at once, when all the schools just got there, and we were kind of overwhelmed with the amount of students, but…
gabrysia: It still was just such a fun time, and it was just an amazing… amazing to see all the change happening.
gabrysia: my… so I guess my… Most, like, the best thing? Am I positive?
gabrysia: My… yeah, so my best thing about this… the best thing about this conference for me was just seeing everyone in the theater room, just seeing how many students actually came to be here to become changemakers. It was just an amazing feeling as well, that I was a part of creating this and being able to let these students come here and collaborate with each other.
Melania: Yeah, so our conference ran from a Thursday to a Saturday, and on the Sunday before the conference week started, we had, like, our last kind of meeting as a core team, and that's when we were, like, clipping and assembling people's lanyards.
Melania: And for so long, like, for the last year or something, we've been looking at spreadsheets and documents, like Gabby said, with lists of people's names, right? And for me, I remember when the first day of the conference happened, and all these people started coming in and were handing out lanyards.
Melania: And I recognized all these people's names. And that was so incredible to me that, like, this…
Melania: person who I've seen in a spreadsheet, their name so many times, what delegation they're in, and…
Melania: all those things, that now I can connect a face to a name, and that this is actually happening.
Julia: Yeah, that first day was also a highlight for me, but I think I'm gonna mention
Julia: something else. I think it was the final day, the Saturday, the final session in the theater, which was the We Will Statements session. Because we had this sort of… I think this is from a previous conference, we had this sort of ritual? This, like, boom-clap-woo thing?
Julia: That we would do as a whole…
Julia: cohort at the end of everyone's We Will statement, and it was really nice to see everyone committing to it, and committing to, I guess, also the whole changemaker mindset as a whole, and it was…
Julia: really wholesome, I would say, to hear everyone's weevil statements, and that they were able to take away something special from this conference.
Scott Jamieson: Beautiful.
Scott Jamieson: That last day is always my favorite. I love when we get everybody together, we're doing our action planning, and then coming together for that we will statement, and just kind of goosebumps as you're talking about that last day. It's just such a powerful moment.
Scott Jamieson: to be there for, as a participant, as an educator, as really anybody in that room can just feel that positive energy, and I think it's so awesome that
Scott Jamieson: you all played such a big role in creating that moment for all of these people. I think that's really exciting.
Scott Jamieson: What's something you would say to some students at another school who are…
Scott Jamieson: thinking about getting involved in the conference, or maybe even thinking about hosting their own conference. So maybe that's two different questions, but someone who maybe doesn't feel like they're a changemaker yet, or they see some of the stories of people who've been involved in changemaking for a little bit longer, they feel a little intimidated.
Scott Jamieson: But they're not sure if this is the place for them.
Scott Jamieson: Maybe let's start there. What would your advice be to someone who is, sort of like Julia said earlier, feeling this sort of sense of civic responsibility, but not sure what those next steps are?
Julia: I think that might be…
Julia: one of the more beautiful things about the Changemaker Conference is that you have so many people who are on different, at different points of their Changemaker journey. And so, if… even if you're just at the beginning, just start, go.
Julia: And see what you can find, because everyone always ends up taking away something, no matter how much they've done, or how much they have yet to do.
Julia: there's always something for you, and all I can recommend is to just start, start and have an open mind.
Melania: Yeah, I mean, what is it that they say? Like, the best cure for anxiety is action?
Melania: Right? And I think that's so true, that, like, if there's…
Melania: anything that you feel has to get done, it's better, like Juliet said, just to start, even if you start completely from nothing, like, very, very small, at least you've done something.
Melania: And then from then, it will grow. If you continue putting more effort into it, and if you bring more people into it, if you spread your message, it will grow, because that's what happens.
Melania: But it can be really difficult to start.
Scott Jamieson: Beautifully said. I think that's really important. My good friend Steve Stostak, who was one of the founders of Inspire Citizens, he passed away a couple of years ago.
Scott Jamieson: He always said, just take that first step.
Scott Jamieson: And the rest kind of follow.
Scott Jamieson: And I think it's so, so important, but it's also so difficult sometimes. And you guys have been talking about this sense of community, where we bring people together who are in a lot of different stages of this.
Scott Jamieson: but with that shared purpose. And I think it can be just the right inspiration that people need to take that first step.
Scott Jamieson: Now, I want to shift to the second part of that question, from your conference organizer perspective.
Scott Jamieson: What's advice you might give to a school who's thinking about taking on a Change Mayor Conference? We're seeing Change Mayor conferences popping up in different parts of the world.
Scott Jamieson: What is some advice you would give to a school who is thinking about this as a next step?
gabrysia: So, an advice I would give is to make sure that you have a lot of, like, different student delegations that are helping you out, and that you're not just carrying this whole conference on very, like, 6 people, and to make sure you have that help and that support around you.
gabrysia: In.
Julia: Yeah, and to add on Gabby's comment, I think…
Julia: Have… the more people you have involved, the more…
Julia: the more people you have involved, the more resilient your conference will be, right? Because if you have… if you're solely relying on one person for a million of responsibilities, if something happens to that one person.
Julia: the conference might fall apart, unfortunately. Not to put a negative spin on it, but…
Julia: Having more people involved equals resilience.
Scott Jamieson: Well said.
Scott Jamieson: Sorry, millennia ago.
Melania: I think what was really important in organizing the conference for us
Melania: Beyond the tons of students working in the student teams.
Melania: Making sure that your core team is so, so strong, that you have such open communication in that group, that if in a discussion someone, like, floats their idea, and if you hate it.
Melania: You have to say it right there and then, you have to be so honest, you have to always say what you think, especially as a student, because…
Melania: like, in two weeks' time, you won't get a chance to go back anymore, right? You have to say what you're thinking when you're thinking it, even though it can be difficult.
Scott Jamieson: That is such an important leadership skill.
Scott Jamieson: And it was Patrick Valencioni who talked about that in a lot of his work, is that conflict is a good thing on a team. If we don't have conflict, that means we don't have trust, we don't have people who
Scott Jamieson: are feeling comfortable enough to share their opinion, and we want everybody's ideas on the table. We want a space where it's collaborative, where we feel people can push back on ideas and make them that little bit better by getting into some productive disagreements to lead us to some better places.
Scott Jamieson: Such great advice to all of you. I might also add, noting that we have two teachers with us on the call, silently here listening.
Scott Jamieson: who are joining us on their holiday, no less, to be part of… to listen in on this conversation. But Mr. Sheehan and Mr. DeHart, and I'm sure many other teachers at your school, who are those supportive people. And I think for people who are starting out with this work.
Scott Jamieson: There are teachers, I will guarantee you, there are teachers at your school who are…
Scott Jamieson: going to help you along this journey, and I love that this conference is how student-led it is. I love how you guys have…
Scott Jamieson: taken on so much, all of this planning and responsibility to bring this together, but I also want to give a shout out to some of the adults who
Scott Jamieson: are the trusted person behind the scenes to help with these kind of things, and so find those people at your school if you're thinking about moving forward with an event like this.
Scott Jamieson: My last question comes back to something that Julia mentioned earlier. Thinking about this, no matter where you are in your changemaker journey.
Scott Jamieson: That there's always something you take away from a conference.
Scott Jamieson: So what is that one thing that you put in your back pocket at the conference that you're gonna take with you?
Melania: Hmm.
Julia: I think
Julia: I think… For me, it was something that could probably be applied to most aspects
Julia: Could you hear the church bell?
Scott Jamieson: Nope, I think we're good.
Julia: Okay, I think for me, it was something that I could probably apply to most aspects of
Julia: My life, and it was something one of our…
Julia: teacher mentors, Mr. Ireland said. I don't know if this is, like, a famous quote, but he said something along the lines of, perfect is the enemy of done, and so I think that is something I'm definitely going to take with me.
Julia: for my academic journey, my changemaker journey, and just realizing, again, just start and ask for forgiveness later. Just do it, because oftentimes it's just yourself that is stopping you from making the change. Like, of course, there are systemic barriers, but…
Julia: just try. Just do it. Even if you fail miserably, everything is a learning curve.
Melania: Yeah, for me, my favorite part of all conferences I've been to are the speakers, and
Melania: the… especially the adult speakers, like, obviously the student speakers are really powerful for me because they're more relatable, but it's amazing for me to see that, oh, there's all these adults who are doing this as well, that…
Melania: This is…
Melania: it's more future-oriented for me, that, oh, like, this is what I could be doing eventually, right? And I think on the first day.
Melania: we had a really amazing speaker come in to talk about mindset and well-being and confidence, especially. And I think a big takeaway for me, and hopefully for the other planners as well.
Melania: was… How much this conference did for having confidence in myself and my capabilities.
Melania: Like, I feel so…
Melania: capable of organizing this, because I took on… because we took on such a difficult thing, and we did it really well, I think.
gabrysia: for me, something I'm taking away from this conference, it's similar to Melania's, I think. It's that, like, even if you just have a simple idea and you don't have that much support behind it, it's to just do it and just initiate it.
gabrysia: Because after seeing so many students sharing their ideas and the things they've done at their school, even though maybe in the beginning they didn't have that much support, it just inspires me to, in the future, whenever I have something I want to do, even if I don't have those people backing me up, I just will want to do it and create that change, or just act on my idea.
Scott Jamieson: Beautifully said, and so inspirational. I think that it's always cool to hear what people take away from these events, and there's so many different things, whether it's connecting with other students, or connecting with a speaker, or just like Julia said, that one little line that sparked something that can be applied in so many other places.
Scott Jamieson: I wanted to ask one more quick follow-up question on something that Melania said. She was talking about being future-oriented. So…
Scott Jamieson: What gives you hope for the future?
Melania: I mean, I think seeing… What those adult speakers, or the adults we bring to our conference.
Melania: How they and their adult lives address change-making makes it feel…
Melania: less abstract for us, because a lot of the time, I feel that especially sustainability or work in social justice can be portrayed as not serious enough, you know? Something that's not…
Melania: I mean, okay.
Scott Jamieson: Come on, I need to jump back to not serious enough.
Melania: Think about it.
Scott Jamieson: Rose, sorry.
Melania: Oops. Okay. I think a lot of the time, careers in sustainability and social justice can be considered as not serious enough, or not quote-unquote, real jobs, or real futures.
Melania: And I…
Melania: I think that can do a lot of harm, especially places like this, and seeing even what educators who come to our conferences, like, what they do, I think that makes me so much more hopeful that it's something we can pursue into adulthood as well.
Julia: I think I would address, also, seeing all the students in that room, it makes me feel like our future lies in good hands. Like, we're gonna make sure that the next generation, our generation, that we will have a sustainable, healthy, happy planet to live on, yeah.
gabrysia: Yeah, as Julia said, seeing, like, with so many students with already ideas to implement change and to better the world just makes me believe that the future is in good hands and that we'll be okay.
gabrysia: So…
Scott Jamieson: And we need that hope.
Scott Jamieson: with everything going on and everything that we're seeing in our social media feeds, I think it's important to find that evidence-based hope, and I think this is such a great example of that. And it's events like this, and young people like you, who give me hope for the future.
Scott Jamieson: Because you're willing to step up, and you're willing to get involved, and you're willing to lead this kind of work.
Scott Jamieson: And not just as students, but this might translate into adulthood. There are people out there who are doing this important work as a career, and helping students to see that, and kind of connecting what we believe, what our values are, what our why is, to something that can…
Scott Jamieson: give us all kind of lifestyle we want to live, but also kind of think about what the world needs, and be able to address that. The Japanese have a philosophy called Ikigai.
Scott Jamieson: And finding your way into the middle of that complicated VIN diagram is not our… or sorry, it's not easy for people. And I think it's events like this that sort of help us find our way.
Scott Jamieson: Thank you so much. You know, Melania, Julia, and Gabriella, I'm so excited to have a chance to connect with you and talk about the conference, the amazing work that you were able to do to bring so many people together, and to spark so many ideas, and send people back to their own schools with
Scott Jamieson: Not just ideas, but the kind of tools and strategies and connections and community that they need to move forward with these challenging but so important projects.
Scott Jamieson: So, I'm feeling so inspired, and thank you to all of you for connecting over your school holiday, for finding time to be
Scott Jamieson: Storytellers for good, and sharing this hope for the future with our listeners. I'm really grateful.
Melania: Thank you so much.
Julia: so much.
Scott Jamieson: And… I'm just gonna turn the recording off, you guys were awesome!