The Congolese Youth Biodiversity Network (CYBN) is a national coordination of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) in the DRC, whose objectives are:
- To sensitise Congolese youth to an effective involvement in biodiversity management, in order to make them guarantors and custodians of this biodiversity on which their future depends.
- Demonstrate the importance of youth in solving problems related to environmental degradation.
CYBN aims to connect all youth in the DRC whose ultimate goal is the protection of biodiversity in order to create a national platform where ideas, talents, skills and experiences are cultivated and shared. This will be achieved by creating nodes at the level of each province until there are nodes in all 26 provinces of the country. We work in collaboration with the national ministries of tourism, environment, agriculture as well as with the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN).
In partnership with other youth organisations, GYBN-RDC conducts awareness campaigns on biodiversity protection. These campaigns are mainly carried out through tree planting, sanitation, webinars on social media, workshops and the creation of discussion groups in schools and universities. These campaigns target the general public, schools and universities. Schools are targeted to involve children in biodiversity conservation activities so that they grow up with the importance of small actions on biodiversity protection constantly in mind. This will help build a biodiversity-conscious generation (our mission). We publish articles on youth involvement in biodiversity management on social media and through radio productions.
As a youth organization working in biodiversity conservation, we are looking for networking opportunities to advance our work, learn from other organizations and spread the word about what we are doing locally which is why we wish to join Conservation Optimism.