Feel Good Friday - Roots & Shoots

As you’ve likely heard, Dr. Jane Goodall passed away this week at the age of 91. To honor her memory, today’s Feel Good Friday is highlighting the organization Roots & Shoots.

I first profiled Roots & Shoots in celebration of her 80th birthday in April, 2014. Time for a refresh on the organization and what they’ve accomplished.

Roots & Shoots is the Jane Goodall Institute's youth program. It began in Tanzania in 1991 when a group of teenagers approached Dr. Jane about concerns for their community and she encouraged them to take action. Inspired by their work, she shared their stories and Roots & Shoots chapters started to spread around the globe. This one-minute video explains the origin story and current state.

The mission of Roots & Shoots is “to empower young people to affect positive change in their communities.” Local chapters focus on projects that benefit the environment and improve the lives of people and animals. Examples of these youth-led projects include providing habitats for native pollinators such as monarch butterflies and rusty patched bumble bees, recycling used printer cartridges, and No Waste November, which encourages people to “mindfully notice and reduce daily waste”.

In 2024, there were 10,000 active groups in all 50 states and more than 75 other countries. In this one year alone 1,745,000 young people took part in programs and recorded over 420,000 hours of activities.

As they state on the website, by encouraging youth around the globe to use their voices and actions to help people, other animals, and the environment we share, “We are nurturing the compassionate leaders of tomorrow.” What a wonderful legacy for a wonderful human being.

If you’d like to get involved with Roots & Shoots and are under 16 years of age, you can become a member and create a project in your neighborhood or get started with some of these 1-click actions. 

The rest of us can support the work of Roots & Shoots by shopping for merch, making a donation to the Jane Goodall Institute and amplifying this work on social media. Sign up for the mailing list or follow Roots & Shoots on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to their YouTube channel.

Feel Good Friday - Roots & Shoots

photo credit: Jane Goodall Institute

Yesterday Dr. Jane Goodall turned 80 and Feel Good Friday is celebrating her birthday by spreading the work of her Roots & Shoots organization!

We all know Jane Goodall for her work with chimpanzees and the recent video of a rescued chimp who hugs her before returning to the wild. 

But what is Roots & Shoots and how did it get it's name? The ever-optimistic Dr. Goodall explains the name in her own words in this 1:11 min video.

Their website explains the purpose of the organization. "Roots & Shoots is the youth-led community action and learning program of the Jane Goodall Institute. The program builds on the legacy and vision of Dr. Jane Goodall to place the power and responsibility for creating community-based solutions to big challenges in the hands of the young people. Through the program, young people map their community to identify specific challenges their neighborhoods face.  From there, they prioritize the problems, develop a plan for a solution, and take action."

The best part about this is the encouragement for people not to become overwhelmed by every environmental issue that's going wrong but instead focusing on steps we can all take to make a change for the better. She said it best herself in a quote I recently discovered, "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

Since it's inception in Tanzania in 1991, Roots & Shoots has expanded to 130 countries with over 150,00 members! Whether you join a project or donate money, Dr. Goodall's birthday wish, which she shared on a live broadcast Google+ hangout, is that the work being done by Roots & Shoots continues with or without her.

As always, you can keep up with this remarkable woman by liking Jane Goodall on Facebook or following the Jane Goodall Institute on Twitter @JaneGoodallInst. I hope I'm half this awesome when I'm 80.