Otesha Project: Cycling for Sustainability

Current consumption behaviours in Australia have far reaching consequences that are both unsustainable and inequitable.

The negative impacts of these practices usually affect the most disempowered people in society, including young people who now face an uncertain future. The aim is to ensure that the basic needs of the entire global community are met by reducing excess consumption, avoiding environmental damage, and ensuring that we are considering all peoples needs through social considerations for safe working conditions and fair living wages.

We believe that the problem is not that people don’t want to change, but that they don’t understand why change is needed or that they feel overwhelmed by the size of the problems and can’t easily see ways to be part of the solutions. Therefore, there is an urgent need for programs that shift attitudes about the impacts of our daily choices, build positive social norms, and reduce the perceived barriers around taking action on sustainability issues.

The objectives of The Otesha Project (Australia) are to increase awareness about the impacts of the products and resources we consume, increase the number of responsible consumer choices made by young Australians, and increase the number of young role models and sustainability advocates.

The Otesha Project (Australia): Cycling for Sustainability is a grassroots youth-based organisation, which uses comical theatre to mobilize young people to create a more sustainable world through their daily consumer choices.

Otesha is a Swahili word for 'reason to dream' and is an underlining philosophy of our organisations work towards a sustainable future. We deliver our presentation, which involves a hilarious skit and classroom-based workshops, to regional schools while on cycle tours. During this project participants gain the experience needed to become long-term role models of sustainable consumption, while inspiring audiences to make similar choices.

There are many ways you can be involved in The Otesha Project (Australia):

Join a tour: Every year we organise education and empowerment cycle tours, inspiring young people to think about sustainable consumption in our everyday lives. These cycle tours are powered by motivated, passionate, inspirational and funky youth. Come and join the mobile community, performing plays and delivering workshops on sustainability and social justice issues in regional schools across Australia. Check out the latest tours we have planned www.otesha.org.au

Assist in the planning of a tour: If you are interested in planning some of the logistics of one of these amazing tours, we would LOVE your help.

Help develop our education presentation: We are always trying to improve our education presentation and the more creative ideas we have the better. We would love some help to make the comical skit and slideshow presentations most engaging and fun for youth.

Content development: We are seeking assistance with the design of our logo, postcards, and the development of slideshows for our presentation. These are some great opportunities to put some of your creative skills to great use!