In November 2007 four members of the Brave New Voices Network traveled to Chicago Illinois, to perform at the largest Green Festival in the United States known as Green Build.  This conference boasted over 20,000 attendees including former President Bill Clinton, environmental guru Paul Hawken, and a host of other leaders in the Sustainability Movement.  After a series of stellar performances from Jared Paul, of Providence, Dawn Maxey of Stanford University, this years BNV Sundance Winner Kiyra Traber of the Bay Area, and the winner of the first BNV Sundance Global Warming poetry competition, George Watsky, Youth Speaks was positioned as a key organization working to forward the sustainability movement and to inspire young people to become champions for the environment.

This event is a culmination of two years of partnership with the Robert Redford Sundance Institute who, inspired by the words of our youth, have worked with us to facilitate our Sundance event as part of our BNV festival.  Each year this event has gotten bigger and better, as youth from around the country, ages 13 – 24 compete for the opportunity to travel on behalf of Youth Speaks to some of the key conferences and summits on the Environment to date.

Thus far, winners and participants have performed at the United States Mayors Conference, where over 70 of the nations Mayors convene to discuss environmental responsibility and accountability; the Power Shift Conference which was a convening of 5000 young people in Washington DC to lobby against Global Warming; and of course the Green Build conference where engineers and architects gather to be introduced to new technology and be inspired to save the earth.

We are honored to work with all of the groups to forward this cause and to lend our voices to the movement to end global warming and encourage environmental stewardship.