This is an interview conducted over the phone with Jane Riddford, who is the founder of Global Generation, a London-based charity. I have known and been friends with Jane since 2004 when we were both students of Andrew Cohen, a modern day spiritual teacher. At the time I knew what she was doing was cool, but I didn’t realize that it is really the future of humanity—a global world, with global citizens, each with something worth living for, working together. So a few years on, I thought it would make perfect sense to do a interview with her for the Sunny Way as we share this same desire.

The focus of Global Generation is helping kids, teenagers, and young people to understand that nature is a part of who they already are. For many of these kids growing up in London, nature is almost completely alien to them, and just reconnecting helped them have a deeper connection to themselves and what it really means to be human today.

From there the program links ecology in to society using practical experiences. The kids plant, grow, spend time in the countryside, green up city buildings, and work to bring nature back into the city. All of this brings them a hands-on knowledge of the interconnection of our urban and rural landscapes, as well as a grounded understanding of their place as part of the whole.

Global Generation itself represents the next generation of organization, always changing, reconfiguring and working out what works now, not what worked last month. Jane told me its ultimate objective is to not exist anymore because then everyone will be living and expressing it! To some that may sound idealistic but to me it sounds like an objective worthy of truly inspiring the next generation of emerging adults.

The Sunny Way would like to say Go Jane!

Following are some quotes to whet your appetite. You can download the entire interview here, and click on through to the Global Generation website for more information.

“The biggest thing was these different groups of kids all being together, there were all these activities we do but for me when they suddenly they stop and go ‘oh wow its really quiet here’, or seeing the sun go down, which is like watching the earth turn. The most important thing is getting a bigger view, and that it is cool to care, care for oneself, care for each other and care for the planet.”

“By degrees we evolved the concept of living roofs into a living building, the idea of bringing life into a office building, and having kids to do that. Then we started to notice bringing kids into a business environment. What they started to realize was this wasn’t school this was real life. Also having kids in the environment, we got people working in the building it brought out a sense of responsibility in them and animated some kind of consciousness in the whole situation.”

“We’ve seen rapid change in 6 months, very cynical, very ‘Whatever’ teenage girls ... it was a big shock to them. With no electricity no curling tongs, we had to work really hard, but then somehow by the end of the 4 days we knew a bubble had burst, but we didn’t know where it was gonna lead, and thought we were being very idealistic ... then a week later the most challenging of the group, suddenly the penny dropped and she saw we weren’t asking her to be a tree hugger! It was important to have that experience, she got it and understood her experience, why we had taken them out, and how it translates into a office building in the middle of London, and what businesses are doing, and I remember her suddenly turning to me and saying ‘Jane you’ve got to shout about this! You’ve gotta get the message out!’”