Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots
Roots creep underground everywhere and make a firm foundation. Shoots seem very weak, but to reach the light, they can break open brick walls. Imagine that the brick walls are all the problems we have inflicted on our planet. Hundreds of thousands of roots and shoots, hundreds of thousands of young people around the world, can break through these walls. We CAN change the world.
-- Dr. Jane
-- Dr. Jane
When I do a project or activity, I feel good about myself because I know that I helped do something to make the world a better place. I would tell people thinking of joining Roots & Shoots to go for it, because it is fun and it feels good to participate in a group or club activity. You can encourage your group to do a project about something you care about."
--Kathryn E., age 12, R&S Medford, Massachusetts
In 1991, a group of 16 local teenagers met with Dr. Jane Goodall on her back porch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They were eager to discuss the deforestation, pollution and poverty they saw in their community that was causing them deep concern. These motivated young people wanted to learn, but more than that, they wanted to take action and they hoped to inspire their peers to join the effort. Dr. Jane was impressed by their compassion, their energy and their desire to develop grassroots solutions to problems.
These young people, with Dr. Jane’s guidance, founded the first Roots & Shoots group, starting a network that now includes 150,000 young people working on service projects in 110 countries worldwide.
The Roots & Shoots model is a simple yet holistic approach that maximizes youth engagement. Projects are driven by the interests and abilities of the participants; members are given tools to identify issues in their communities and encouraged to develop projects to address the issues that matter most to them. Members start community gardens, do eco-audits of large corporate offices or save local populations of turtles. The type of projects vary, based on age, interests and community needs, but the common thread across Roots & Shoots service projects is our proven methodology.
