Thirty-six young people from all over the East coast came together in August of 2015 for the Eastern region’s youth grassroots training program, called SPROG. Fourteen of the young people were from North Carolina. This present and future generation of environmental leaders gathered to learn vital environmental and community organizing skills over a week-long, intensive training program. Jacquie Ayala, an organizer with the North Carolina Sierra Club, was one of the training’s facilitators.
By Jacquie Ayala
Field Organizer
This summer’s East SPROG was nothing short of transformational for the young people who were a part of it. The program is one of the most unique training experiences you could be a part of - not only is it totally youth-led and youth-organized, but it is also one of the most comprehensive grassroots organizing trainings available to young people, with over a dozen trainings and even a Campaign Simulation activity that participants engage in throughout the week.
The Trainings Team prepares and delivers all of these trainings, and coaches the “Sproggers” throughout the week on each of these skills. An important part of this peer to peer education is the focus on creating an inclusive and equitable space. The Trainings Team works very intentionally to make SPROG a place where young people can show up as their full selves, and learn about how they can work together towards a better world by recognizing, acknowledging, and embracing differences. So while they were learning about how to face some of the most difficult environmental challenges head-on, they were also learning how to work across difference and lean into new experiences and new relationships.
Sproggers also get to learn from real-life organizers, who come to Sprog to share their stories and show them what it truly looks like to be a grassroots organizer in your community. This year’s East Sproggers got to hear from a wonderful set of organizers, including Carol Judy, organizing coal mining communities in Tennessee, D’atra Jackson, working locally in Durham, NC on the #blacklivesmatter movement, and even our own NC Sierra Club Chapter on the Clean Power Plan and the historic step we’re taking towards addressing climate change.
Sprogger Milli Langston shared, “this was seriously one of the most incredible and humbling experiences [of] my life.”
The most amazing thing about this program is that every year, we get to train, inspire, and empower dozens of young people who will and have gone on to be leaders at the Sierra Club, and leaders of the environmental movement at large. Investment in our young people is one of the most powerful tools we have for social change, and we must continue to be dedicated to them as they grow, learn, and light their own green fires.
The program was held in Raleigh’s Umstead State Park and was hosted by the Sierra Student Coalition and the NC Chapter of the Sierra Club.