James Pochury
“Who am I?” is the fundamental question tackled at the onset of Gathering One of the Indigenous Youth Learning Journey, the online learning activity series that the River Above Asia Oceania Ecclesial Network (RAOEN) is facilitating in preparation for understanding and engaging with the November 2026 climate conference, COP31.
The RAOEN activity is intended to create a space for Indigenous young people to begin locating themselves in their own stories. Related questions then followed as integral to the discussion. What shaped them? What do they feel? What burden do they carry? Where do they come from? How is their identity connected to their community, culture, and place?
Reflection activities, including the use of the Feelings Wheel tool, help open a space that begins with the person behind the eventual advocate and are not simply introductory exercises.
The process recognizes that an Indigenous voice cannot emerge merely by providing young people with information about climate change, the climate conference (COP), or climate-related advocacy.
Young people already carry experiences, memories, relationships, observations, cultural knowledge, and understanding of their communities and lands and the challenge is to create conditions in which these are recognized, articulated, and shared.
Gathering One also gave facilitators an initial glimpse by which to engage the youth participants in an online platform and context. Some participants maintained a visible image and directly discussed with the others. Others were quiet and remained observant during the activity.
As such, this initial gathering is a reminder that limited visible participation does not necessarily mean limited interest but can reflect other concerns that are not visible such as limited self-confidence, unfamiliarity with online spaces, language differences, trust issues, different cultural listening patterns, or uncertainty about the value of the process.
Accompaniment of Indigenous youth involves establishing the conditions in which meaningful participation and agency can grow. Gathering One is a journey. It is not about completing a learning objective. Participation is hoped to develop gradually from observation to contribution and, for some, towards a building of leadership.
Gathering One began with the question “Who am I?” for the youth participants, and the follow-on question can be “Who are my people, and what is happening in the place I come from?” It is a first step in a process that starts from a personal story that can open into a community story and on to a deeper encounter with land, sea, ecology, knowledge, and lived reality.
This process is aimed at contributing to building their capacity as Indigenous youth making and presenting their own case in wider spaces such as the COP. Thus, this RAOEN activity with Indigenous youth is not simply to prepare young people for a global event but to accompany them in discovering and strengthening a voice that is rooted in their people, their places, and their knowledge.
James Pochury facilitates the ongoing sessions of the Indigenous Youth Learning Journey to COP31, with the first session held on 15 August 2026. RAOEN offers these sessions for Indigenous youth as a series of online learning activities in preparation for COP31 in November 2026.