As the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is gearing up towards the upcoming United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), UNEP@50 and Stockholm+50, the Children and Youth Major Group of the UNEP made an announcement to young people and youth organizations worldwide and invited them to be a part of the youth mobilization. As part of the same, it invited organizations/groups/individuals to engage in the youth preparatory process for UNEA through virtual consultations in the form of a decentralised Local Youth Environment Assembly (LYEA). These LYEAs are organized and run by youth for youth, aimed at empowering youth action around environmental governance and conservation. They are required to hold events with more localised context to feed into the UNEP and UNEA processes.
             The Brahma Kumaris and Enact Earth Foundation were selected to organize a virtual LYEA for Indian youth. As part of the LYEA, we aim to create a space for youth to come together and learn sustainable solutions for a prosperous future. We plan to bring in experts who can provide guidance on the themes chosen and can share their practical experiences to take action on environmental governance, conservation and sustainability. Through this LYEA, we aspire to create an output document to feed the views of our youth participants into the Global YEA and the UNEA.   
                LYEAs emanate from, benefit and form a part of a community of youths wishing to work together for the environment. As organizations whose objectives have always been to help individuals, organizations and governments explore the deeper connection between consciousness, environment and climate change, we invite youth participants from urban and rural India, marginalized communities, youth with special needs to come together, engage and contribute to create a better future.

General Objective of Local Youth Environment Assembly:

Objective of LYEAs is to educate, build knowledge and understanding among the national and regional youth on environmental governance and conservation, sustainable development, and the United Nations system, especially the UNEP processes and UNEAs, as well as empowering young people to participate in these processes, by:

1. developing positions of youth on issues related to environmental governance and conservation that are relevant in the respective country or region. Those positions are meant to be fed into the Global YEA as to be then reflected as a part of GCYE inputs to the annual UNEAs and are a basis to spread perspectives and ideas of youth around the globe;
2. the LYEA should provide appropriate space and programming to enable participants’ effective preparation and engagement at the UNEA and gain further knowledge about the UNEP;
3. This is what distinguishes a LYEA from other youth-led (environmental/climate) conferences and is intended to be the primary objective of an LYEA.