Youth Empowerment to Prevent Extinction (YEPE) is a formal collaboration between IPPNW and PEAC Institute that effectively utilizes the expertise and strengths of our two organizations. The goal of YEPE is to educate and mobilize young adults – focusing on students of medicine, public health, and natural science – to respond to the twin threats of nuclear war and the climate crisis by demonstrating the links that tie these two issues together and by providing action steps to take.
Starting in 2019, IPPNW and PEAC Institute have worked together to bring medical professionals, international students, and survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the United Nations in support of nuclear weapons abolition. As a part of this effort, we opened a YEPE “UN Desk” at the Church Center of the United Nations at 777 UN Plaza in New York. In April and May of 2019 we organized a program for youth advocates to interact with diplomats and non-governmental organizations assembled at the UN for the Preparatory Committee Meetings for the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).
World Conference: Youth Assembly
The YEPE team has collaborated with countless partners in New York and around the world to advance our mission to unite young people in combating the twin threats of nuclear war and the climate crisis. YEPE, alongside Peace Action New York State, Soka Gakkai International, the International Trade Union Confederation, and many others, played a lead role in successfully organizing the largest YEPE project yet, the first World Conference: Youth Assembly. On May 2, 2020, over 370 Zoom participants from 50+ countries around the world, including the United States, Japan, Nepal, the United Kingdom, Kenya, and Germany joined us to learn about the intersecting threats of nuclear war, the climate crisis, and global injustice. Among the panelists were Franca Bruggen and Kelvin Kibet, IPPNW Medical Student Representatives, who spoke to the medical aspect of COVID-19 and how that is impacting the world around us, tying this back to the threat of nuclear weapons. A report of the Youth Assembly can be found here.
ICAN Paris Forum
YEPE, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Peace Action New York State organized a group of fifteen young people from New York and Boston to attend ICAN’s Paris Forum on February 14-15, 2020. Participation of Boston-based university students was organized by former IPPNW Program Associate Eust Eustis, who remains active in organizing students in the Boston area.
We anticipate growing collaboration in both Boston and New York with our YEPE partners, focusing on the intersection of climate, justice, and nuclear weapons issues.
For more information about YEPE, contact Molly McGinty and visit our events page to stay up-to-date on YEPE activities.