Our goals

NOTE:  Beginning in 2011 CommunEcos will be the umbrella non-profit organization that will house both YIKES! and Recyclique.
Our goal is to engage in creative cross-generational projects that build public awareness and encourage new thinking about low energy lifestyles, and the need to live in harmony with the earth and each other. We also explore sustainable social and economic models based on equity and cooperation as our society transitions away from its current obsession with profit and growth.

We seek to create student/youth-run chapters on college and high schools campuses, and in other community settings, that focus on learning about, teaching and promoting solutions for the energy/climate crisis. We hope to build well-informed leaders -- organizers, educators & community members -- who will shape policy in coming decades as human societies go through a cold turkey withdrawal from our fossil fuel addiction.

We need help from you to shape the movement -- everything from "branding" what we do, to website creation, identifying cool projects, shaping our priorities, and figuring out how to influence policy. [See volunteer opportunities page!]

Other goals:
* promoting social entrepreneurship to provide opportunities to adults and young people in low-income neighborhoods which get hit especially hard by high fuel prices
* fostering cross-over projects that engage college students working together with high school students on sustainability projects,
* creating community service activities through which students can earn credit toward courses,
* involving students in creating interactive, and/or visually-interesting projects that will communicate sustainable goals to the wider community,
* developing projects to assist middle and high school teachers to keep up with and enhance school curricula on the changing energy/climate crisis scene
* developing ways to promote awareness of YIKES! work and of the issues we engage with in the wider community/state/nation
* building community and new forms of identity that will enable the great paradigm shift we are living through
* Oh, and by the way -- this is a nerd-friendly organization -- we love folks who are into science!! Rely on you!! -- But our task in YIKES! will be to make science extremely cool, and accessible to English majors, math-phobics, jocks, fashionistas, etc. So we need lots of folks who are into the arts, journalism, web-based formats, podcasts, film, etc. We also need folks who understand politics, history and social studies so we can figure out the human element in these processes -- whether falling down rabbit holes, or climbing out of them --