Millennium Kids
Millennium Kids is an international youth empowerment environmental organization.
Millennium Kids HQ - Perth Western Australia is a not-for-profit organisation headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, began in 1996 after a small group of Western Australian students attended the United Nations ‘Leave It To Us’ environmental conference for children in the UK. On their return from the conference, the young people were disappointed with the level of youth involvement in local environment issues and decided to set the wheels in motion for developing their own environmental conference – “Kids Helping Kids. With support from Perth Zoo, Department of Environment, Clean Up Australia, CALM and the City of South Perth a conference was born and, subsequently, their own youth-based environmental organisation, Millennium Kids Inc.
The organisation has international affiliates in Canada and South Africa with collaborative organisation links in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Millennium Kids Australia is a registered charity with tax deductible status. Millennium Kids is run by kids, for kids, aged 10–25 years. A team of educators, mentors and sponsors support their aim to encourage young people to be leaders by being aware and active in their environment. Young people aged 18–25 can progress to leadership and training roles within the organisation helping take practical action to improve their local environment.
The Millennium Kids agenda is directed by its Youth Board, with fifteen members aged between 10 and 25 years, and is supported by the United Nations Environment Program Agenda 21, Chapter 25 Declaration which states ‘national governments should pay more attention to the opinions and concerns of children regarding the environment’ and how it should be managed for future generations’.
Canada
In Canada, as a not-for-profit organization, the organization facilitates many environmental activities across Ontario (from Ottawa, Toronto, to Kitchener-Waterloo). A youth board is present in Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo, as well as a chapter starting up in 2006 through the school system in Toronto, Ontario. The youth board decides on what initiatives will be taken upon for the year. Such activities as the Car Free Festival are planned as initiatives in cooperation with other environmental/youth empowerment organizations that reside in the respective area of the initiative.