About the Cynefin PROJECT

My name is Akanksha Basil. I’m a student at Cornell and founder of The Cynefin Project, a youth-led environmental organization. I love to write, hike, take photographs, watch old films, and listen to jazz. I feel happiest when I'm out in nature or have an antique book in my hands.

Like many of you, I harbor extreme fear and anxiety over the impeding doom that is the climate crisis and the relentless threat of human development faced by nature. If you're here, chances are you know that climate change will be catastrophic. It will involve impossible sacrifice, inconceivable change, and a complete upending of human society. This is not a hyperbole.  But what makes climate change and human destruction of the natural world so dangerous is that many of us, in order to cope with the extreme stress of realizing that there may not be a future, push the idea of catastrophe away. Myself included. 

But there are ways for us to create real change. Of course, I could give you the whole spiel on how we need to be the world’s next generation of innovators and how, as adults, we must be the ones to fix humanity’s epic mistakes. Not that that’s not true, but those of us who are passionate about preserving the only planet we have can start by simply having an open, honest dialogue about it. The Cynefin Project was created with the hope that we’d be able to build a network of young environmentalists who have ideas, stories, and plans regarding the crisis we’re facing and the greater frame of the natural world. Activism is a crucial part of creating change, but perhaps, together, we can take it a step further by challenging ourselves to put our ideas out there. We are indeed the next generation, for better or worse. Why not start world-saving with our brains?

I’ll be posting on Cynefin regularly. My team and I will cover everything from our childhood exploits of catching ladybugs and cavorting around with spring peepers in our hair (strange story) to how the fabric of society needs to be ripped up and redone. But more importantly, we want to hear your voice. We want your work to be here, alongside ours— whether you write, draw, paint, sing, or just jot down world-saving ideas on scrap paper, we want to hear what you have to say. Please send us your ideas and stories, and we'll post them on The Cynefin Project. When we can have open discussions, we can start creating plans of action to make real change. If you would like to be a longtime collaborator (YES. PLEASE. WE WANT TO WORK WITH YOU.), we'll communicate, discuss, and eventually start putting some of the pieces of the climate crisis web together. There's a lot of work to be done, and everyone's help is needed. Every single person has the potential to make massive change.

‘Cynefin’ (pronounced kin-ev-in) is a Welsh word roughly translating to ‘habitat’ or ‘a place to stand’. It is the feeling of knowing that you ought to live and belong someplace. We all belong here, on Earth. So let’s do our best to help it survive, and hopefully thrive. 

Who knows? Maybe we’ll solve the woes of humanity. I hope your place to stand is here.