Click here to Explore our biggest year of impact, 2025!

Join A Global Environmental Community

Your network of climate leaders, created for Youth by Youth.

Earth Guardians is a revolutionary environmental nonprofit that provides youth with the resources and training needed to create climate justice-driven solutions that make a real difference locally, nationally, and internationally.

Get involved in the movement and become an Earth Guardian.

Calling Mid-Atlantic Indigenous Youth! Opportunity to get Involved

Apply to 2026 IYI Training

Our Earth Guardians Indigenous Youth Initiative (IYI) Training is a gathering of emerging Indigenous leaders from across Turtle Island designed to amplify our voices and build the leadership skills needed to address some of the world’s most pressing issues. Our training is rooted in the resurgence of our traditional values and practices as the solution to the climate crisis.

This year, we have two sessions (June & October) open to Indigenous youth ages 18-30 living in the Mid-Atlantic region (VA, DC, MD, PA, WV & DE).

Click the button below to apply, and if you have any questions please reach out to Sebi, our IYI Director sebi@earthguardians.org .

2026 Application

Applicants can choose between two sessions: Summer (June 8-14) or Fall (October 5-11), based on their availability; the curriculum is the same for both sessions. This is a rolling application and acceptance letters are sent on a first come first serve basis.The application for our summer session closes April 1, 2026. The application for our fall session closes August 12, 2026.

Why Earth Guardians

A young man sitting on a boat holding a megaphone, surrounded by children in wooden boats near houses on stilts in a riverside village.

Our Theory of change

We work to center marginalized, tokenized, and underserved communities’ voices and needs and work in the climate justice movement by providing educational resources, micro-grants, network connections, public speaking opportunities, training, campaigns, partnerships, & mentorship to inspire intergenerational leadership.

Earth Guardians' foundation is based on centering the experiences, knowledge, and voices of youth and other underserved communities, and we believe a global shift towards centering these perspectives is the key to healing the climate and environmental crisis.

Long-term, we hope to see that we created an impact that shapes the future of global decision-making by putting power into the hands of youth, women, LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC communities, folks living with visible and invisible disabilities, and other disenfranchised identities.

We promote youth leadership in the environmental movement, especially among marginalized groups, by utilizing education, training, community building, and direct action - shifting power into the hands of the next generation.

Learn more about Earth Guardians

With thousands of engaged youth on six continents, Earth Guardians has given youth a voice, direction, and global platform to become influential leaders and make measurable changes in their communities.

Each year, we develop new resources to build a more robust collaborative network and cultivate this enormous wave of youth engagement.

Highlights of Our Impact

See 2024 Impact

Earth Guardians is for youth, by youth. We stand behind this, and in 2023 we underwent a metamorphosis, becoming truly intergenerational with youth at the helm and in leadership roles at every level of the organization.
Our paid team is a diverse force of young change-makers, environmental activists, and community leaders driving impactful initiatives for a better future.
Our crews conducted 80 projects across 30 African countries, reaching over 1 million beneficiaries through this initiative alone.
In the East & West Africa region, our crews implemented reforestation programs in 30 African countries. Our crews planted 7000 trees in Togo, and established a plant nursery fostering 5000 trees in Cameroon, where they also planted over 9,000 hectares of land with trees.
We also achieved eight key partnerships in Brazil with local and international government and non-governmental organizations. Our crews drove impactful climate emergency initiatives like ‘SOS Horta Parque’ and the ‘7k Project,’ a multi-year process of planting 7000 trees.
Crews are youth-led, intergenerational groups of impassioned leaders across continents taking action together for a healthy, just, and sustainable future.