“The disconnection between the success of trajectory of the green agenda is seldom heard in communities amongst the youth”

“This isn't a get rich scheme, and we're not promising you riches. But, we are promising you both purpose, opportunity and enrichment of self.”

These are the words I uttered to our Cenethics team when we kicked off our ideation think-tank session. It wasn't long ago I had the same thoughts about where I was going, how I was going to get there and if this was going to work. This is something I saw alleviated from the shoulders of our new research team throughout our session together as the process, and a scope of what research could do for them, slowly became a reality.

On Monday 1st August, Cenethics had its first ideation session with our youth team on an exciting, upcoming project, ‘Air pollution and fashion’. Bridging the understanding between air pollution, fashion and political messaging in a way that is instrinctly related to themselves and the locale. Groundbreaking to say throughout our dialogue, it became clear our youth from the locale began to enter into the arena of research and their eyes slowly opened to the understanding of the ‘green agenda’.

But, what also became clear from our gathering, is this green agenda hasn't reached our communities and to go a step further, our youth. We may have come across almost what I'd call a disconnection between corporations and their success trajectory relating to the green agenda and to penetrating the communities they'd like to reach.

One of the young men attending quoted, “It's amazing to have a space to develop ourselves as young black people in brixton, I'm actually starting to believe I can actually make a contribution in research whereas before, I didn't feel like it could.”

Below, Jordan Taylor tells of his relationship with 'Brixton' and Vamp before launching CenEthics.

Following this initial, successful session with our youth team, Cenethics came away with the aim to:

We’re excited at the opportunities for positive change that can take place in communities when its youth are engaged and included in the issues directly affecting them. Their knowledge and lived experience is invaluable in this project and we aim to bring more of it into the research arena.

Another young attendee captured this essence when saying, “Gaining knowledge of community issues through research seems and feels very promising and offers opportunities for real solutions, inclusive of everyone affected.”

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Discover more about Cenethics on our website.