Skip to main content

About the Youth Sustainability Champions

Alfie Erfan, Eliška Gooch and Naomi Davis are the Department for Education’s three Youth Sustainability Champions, supported by SOS UK. They work closely with the Sustainability and Climate Change Unit at the Department for Education (DfE) to ensure that youth voice is substantially included as they implement and further develop their Climate Change Strategy.

They are serving a two year term, which will end in June 2027.

They meet quarterly with Minister Stephen Morgan, the DfE minister responsible for sustainability, buildings and science in education. They also meet monthly and work very closely with the Sustainability and Climate Change Unit, and also meet with other ministers, policymakers, and experts across the Department to support them with understanding how young people’s voices can be engaged with their work.

They regularly visit schools and education settings to engage with a wide range of young people, including those who don’t normally have an opportunity to engage with sustainability in education. They also work closely with a wide variety of youth networks, to ensure that they fully understand the full range of young people’s views with respect to DfE’s approach to dealing with the climate challenge.

The UK pledged to the Universal NDC Youth Clause at COP29, with this scheme used as an example of effective youth engagement within its NDC. This is a global recognition of young people as key agents of change and highlights their critical role in delivering sustainability policy and strategy.

Naomi, Alfie and Eliška at Westminster

The Youth Sustainability Champions' Focus

They hold workstreams including working on youth roundtable discussions and climate justice with the Curriculum and Assessment Review. The YSCs are also exploring learning around capital projects and school buildings, and the link these can provide to green skills learning, along with cross governmental work and helping young people understand DfE’s and the broader government’s climate policy.  

They are working together to support the Curriculum and Assessment Review, ensuring that the Department for Education is best supported to embed sustainability and climate change across subjects and in a way that meaningfully engages learners with the wider societal impacts and system changes surrounding climate change and mitigation.

They are committed to tackling inequality in climate education and access to nature, and promote the government’s Opportunity Mission.

Read about the work of the previous cohort:

The Youth Sustainability Champions with Minister Stephen Morgan, MP

Stakeholder Engagement

The YSCs are very engaged with the DfE’s many partners who are implementing elements of their Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy for Education, as well as with universities and charities involved in furthering Climate Education across England.

They have supported the exam board OCR with the development of the Natural History GCSE, sitting on their advisory board. The previous cohort, Jodie and Will,  worked closely with the Natural History Museum’s team working on the National Education Nature Park to support with engagement and youth voice, and also with United Learning as they have developed the Sustainability Support for Education resource hub. Will sat on the advisory board for the Climate Ambassadors Scheme being run by EAUC and the University of Reading, and also on the advisory board for UCL’s Institute of Education Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education.

Engaging with Alfie, Eliška and Naomi

Alfie, Eliška and Naomi always want to hear young people’s views and feedback about sustainability education. If you have a comment, view, or piece of feedback you would like to share, please do email them via Hannah Fitzpatrick: hannah.fitzpatrick@sos-uk.org

SOS UK's support

Over the past two years, SOS UK has successfully delivered the first Youth Sustainability Champion programme. During the first cohort we worked with Youth Sustainability Champions Jodie Bailey-Ho and Will Wale.
Along with weekly online meetings with their mentor, Hannah, the Youth Sustainability Champions benefit from SOS UK’s wider organisational network, training and expertise. SOS UK supports the Youth Sustainability Champions to have as much impact in the role as possible, including with tasks including workshop/focus group design, preparation of materials, and effective working with ministers and senior officials. They learn about safeguarding, equity and diversity, and security, and develop confidence in speaking to the strategy, and how to engage with the broadest possible group of young people. SOS UK supports them to write policy recommendations and progress updates and connect them with climate education researchers. We also organise COP-specific preparation each year, including a pre-COP briefing and training on UNFCCC processes; and liaise with DfE and other stakeholders to ensure the YFPs are briefed for their programme.

We also act as a buffer between the DfE and the YSCs, ensuring that workload is manageable and so Aflie, Eliška and Naomi can prioritise their wellbeing, studies and work placements while delivering on their commitments.

The YSCs are paid an annual stipend and receive travel and subsistence expenses for their involvement in the programme.