Youth Venture

First Here, Then Everywhere: Communities will provide toolkits and a web-based network to youth environmetal groups.

Alex Hadik and Chloe Maxmin are the founders of FHTE: Communities. Chloe Maxmin is the founder of FHTE, an online network for young environmentalists.
By updating First Here, Then Everywhere, we realized that we could achieve our goals of uniting youth against climate change.
We are leading members of the Climate Action Club (http://laclimateaction.webs.com), a Youth Venture in Newcastle, ME. The mission of the CAC is to provide opportunities for people in our school and community to directly fight global warming. The CAC has been extremely successful working within the local community to fight climate change. As leading members of the Climate Action Club, we know that even a small group of dedicated students can bring about change. We have been able to galvanize a green movement in our town and established a broad network.
The goal of FHTE is to unite young activists around thevworld by featuring outstanding examples of youth taking local action to help the environment and providing a social hub on which we can connect, converse, and collaborate. After two years, FHTE already has participants from eight countries. However, FHTE needs to be expanded and updated in order to reach the next level. This is where our project comes in.
Our mission is to expand and update First Here, Then Everywhere (www.firstheretheneverywhere.org) to provide toolkits and a web-based network to youth environmental groups, enabling the collaboration of communities throughout the nation.We will enable dialogue and coordination amongst these groups to help them connect, learn about community organizing, campaign strategies, and how to expand their potential influence. Because we will be enabling groups from separate communities to work together, the net impact of their work will be much greater than if they were working on a separated, local level. As our network grows to include youth groups from across the country, individual communities will benefit from the net impact of these environmental youth collaborations. Also, our resources-- the network and toolkits-- will educate youth groups about activism and enable them to achieve their goals more efficiently. The benefit of our knowledge will allow other ventures to grow and act with a foundation.