Social challenges drive young people to action - launching the Nordic Youth Summit

Tomorrow, we launch the Nordic Youth Summit: a key milestone of the Nordic Young Change Leaders (NYC) initiative - a Nordic platform for youth to meet and grow their social innovation initiatives, broadening their networks and engaging other youth to take action in solving societal challenges.  

The pan-Nordic network was formed during Spring 2021 and, through webinars and workshops, the young changemakers have united and gained new tools for changemaking, leading up to the Summit.   

From October 21-23, the Nordic Youth Summit will be a three-day event focused on developing self-leadership skills, strategies to scale social innovation and influencing decision-makers, as well as personal wellbeing. 

One of the Summit participants is Ebba Larsson, an elite cross-country skier, born and raised in Boden who co-founded Explore Together. Explore Together is an initiative that encourages people to have a healthier life and offers to the community inspiration and knowledge through health and mental well-being exercises so that people can bring more energy into life.  

“We want to give more people better conditions to feel good. Health affects everything we do and our goal is to give our members all the pieces of the puzzle they need to have a healthier life and feel more joy and security in themselves” says Ebba Larsson, co-founder of Explore Together.  

In addition to Ebba,17 inspiring changemakers from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden will travel and join the Summit at the location in Kukkola, Northern Sweden. These young social entrepreneurs have founded initiatives that tackle issues ranging from biodiversity loss and sustainable building to diversity in media. Find out more about all the participants and the agenda for the Summit.

During the last ten years, Ashoka has engaged over 400 young changemakers in the Nordics, working closely with youth advisory boards, conducting capacity trainings and providing changemaking tools to youth and educators, advocating for youth leadership towards inclusive and sustainable development.