How CREDO Mobile Helps Earth Guardians

How CREDO Mobile Helps Earth Guardians Protect Our Planet

Earth Guardians is an international climate and environmental justice nonprofit that trains, educates, and provides resources for youth globally to become leaders within the climate and environmental movements. The organization was founded in Hawaii in 1992 as a high school program that focused on making an impact locally. They were instrumental in banning plastic bags and ending the practice of burning sugar cane fields, among other things. The success of Earth Guardians eventually earned them recognition by the Dalai Lama and the group was awarded the Torch of Hope.

Today, Earth Guardians is an international movement. The organization encourages young people to address climate change and environmental degradation through on-the-ground projects; nonviolent, direct action; art-ivism, and civic engagement.

CREDO Mobile has partnered with Earth Guardians since 2017. We are proud to support an organization that not only makes a meaningful impact in the preservation of our environment, but one that ensures future generations are active and involved in this important movement. Here’s how we help this group make a difference.

Local Work Makes a Global Impact

Earth Guardians’ central program is their Crews. This program helps to resource, onboard, and mentor young people all over the world into local squads, called Crews, and perform climate action and environmental justice work. Crews address local environmental issues in their communities, but this work has a global impact. There are currently 98 active Crews in 35 countries, doing everything from planting a hundred thousand mangroves in Sierra Leone to fossil fuel resistance training among Indigenous youth in the United States. Crews around the globe connect virtually to learn from one another and share what kind of work that they’re doing.

A large part of the Earth Guardians mission is to give a platform and a voice to youth that are normally underserved, and it runs several programs, including an indigenous youth program, to better serve these communities. These programs train and support indigenous youth at the intersection of environmental climate and social justice, with a specific focus on indigenous sovereignty, climate justice organizing, as well as media and storytelling. The organization’s leadership reflects its commitment to these communities as well; Earth Guardians staff is about 85% black and indigenous, and primarily under 30 years old.

On-the-ground work done by Crews isn’t the only way Earth Guardians make an impact. The organization runs a program called Earth Voices which empowers young speakers to give supplementary climate education in public schools, teach young people how to become environmental and climate organizers, and then help them start a crew in their schools. They also have a Speakers Bureau, a collection of professional speakers—many of whom started out as Crews members or as Earth Voices trainees—who speak at engagements like the UN Conference of Parties, the US Senate, and more.

One of the core beliefs of Earth Guardians is “you protect what you love.” If a young person doesn’t have a relationship with nature, then they’re not going be motivated to protect it. The group seeks to forge these connections and open the door for young people to discover just how they want to become activated within the climate movement, whether it’s through art, policy, direct action, or something else. Earth Guardians’ goal is for young people to get engaged in a relationship with nature and then learn what their calling is in terms of how to protect nature.

How CREDO Mobile Helps Earth Guardians Protect Nature

CREDO Mobile has been a proud partner to Earth Guardians for over eight years, providing important financial funding and working to raise public awareness about the many programs offered by Earth Guardians.

“CREDO Mobile has been an awesome partner,” says Kellie Berns, International Program Director at Earth Guardians, “They’ve really helped us with our Crews program. Not only do they help fund our programs, but then they also speak to a public audience about what we’re doing, so that more people can find out about our work and get engaged in our work with us.”

Through Earth Guardians, CREDO Mobile has helped to fund the planting of 7,000 trees in Brazil, 20,000 trees and other endemic plant species in a reforestation project in Togo, and 12,000 mangroves in Sia, India. With the support of CREDO Mobile, Earth Guardians has been able to organize fossil fuel resistance marches, conscious consumerism and fashion workshops, and numerous mentorship and training programs for youth around the world

“CREDO Mobile is consistent in supporting our work and work like ours, and they’ve been doing this for years,” says Berns, “It’s truly something they believe in, to be supporting nonprofit work across the environmental and social justice spectrum and connecting nonprofits together to be able to work together in this fight for humanity.”

Earth Guardians is able to achieve its goals because of the customers choosing CREDO Mobile’s phone service. If you’re ready to make a difference in the world simply by using your phone, switch to CREDO Mobile today!