Alan Heeks is a writer, pioneer and group leader with a passion for wellbeing, resilience, sustainability, and how we can learn about them from nature. His latest project is aimed at young people who are concerned about climate change. Here he explains what it’s all about.
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Research by the Climate Psychology Alliance shows very high levels of anxiety about climate change (over 80%) among young people, age 16 to 25, and a widespread belief that older adults are indifferent to their feelings. The first of these findings is horribly understandable, but the second is surely a challenge to us in older generations and in Network of Wellbeing to see how we could help.
Research also shows a big rise in mental health issues among young people: this is fuelled by the climate crisis, and by the pressures and isolation caused by their heavy use of social media. Hedonism and denial may seem a better option than despair, but surely there’s another way?
The Raft: inner wisdom for stormy times
The research quoted above, continues to distress and motivate me. As I pondered what I could offer, the issues of meaning and purpose were foremost. In Spring 2024, I started a project which now has younger leaders (one of them only 24), and is now called The Raft.
The Raft has already started hosting events both online and in-person. Medium-term, our vision is to create a centre in mid-Wales: a community with shared values, engaged with the earth by growing food, and offering a grounded but catalytic venue for events from The Raft and other organisations.
One of our key pilot residentials this year is for young people:
The Meaning Harvest: September 11-17
The Meaning Harvest is designed and facilitated by young people, and intended for 18-35-year-olds. In a world that often feels overwhelming and uncertain, how do we rise to the occasion? In an ailing society, how do we stay healthy? As universities and job prospects continue pushing us towards business as usual, how can we find guidance and meaning?
Our venue is Serenity House, a retreat centre in beautiful countryside in mid-Wales, and only 100 metres from the small railway station in Llangammarch Wells.
This is a week-long gathering for 18-35 year olds who, like us, are grappling with these questions and long for a space to explore them with depth, honesty, and connection. Over the course of a week, we will gather in nature to:
- Share – stories, silence, song, and sacredness.
- Embrace mystery – How do we stay whole in a time of unraveling? How do we navigate both beauty and illness in this world? How to live meaningfully in a rapidly changing world?
- Face the mess we’re in – Honouring our feelings about the world in times of crisis and possibility.
- Reconnect – With land, lineage, and the wisdom traditions that remind us how to walk with reverence.
- Imagine – the wisdom of the past can unlock possibilities ahead: What kind of future do we long for? What can we learn from both ancient traditions and emerging ideas? What pragmatic steps can we take in our lives today?
Through dialogue, storytelling, time in nature, and practices such as movement, meditation and dance, we will create a space of restoration and brave inquiry, all while learning how to live together in community by cooking, cleaning, and living together – including with the Welsh land and its spirit. It is a space to remember what it means to be human together, to consider what that could look like in the world to come, and to start planting the seeds for that future.
No particular background or belief system is required—only a willingness to step together into the unknown.
There are still a few places available. For more details and how to book, click here.