EcoHouse Teens Interview & Collaboration

Recently, Eco-Youth had the amazing opportunity to have a social media interview with Mardet Mulugeta, an EcoHouse Teens executive. We are so excited to work with such a hard-working, current, and an on the rise team that is similar to Eco-Youth. EcoHouse Teens are educating and preparing teens all over the world to make ethical and environmentally consumer and lifestyle choices through their campaigns.

Briefly introduce yourself to the audience and tell us about your journey – where do you live, study, work, and what are you doing at the moment? 

Hi! My name is Mardet and I am currently a senior at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. Some of my hobbies are photography, fashion, and dancing. Right now, I am in the middle of applying to college and managing my organization’s Food Campaign 🙂

What is EcoHouse Teens? How was it founded? What issues does it address and what is its main goal(s)?

EcoHouse Teens is an organization with a mission to make teens more informed about how they can be sustainable. We are basically a group of teens who want to spread awareness of what anyone, specifically other teens, can do to help limit their harm on the environment. My friend Zeinab and I came up with the idea to create this organization over the summer when we were both quarantined. We had different interests, I was concerned with the fashion industry while she was more interested in the food industry, but we decided that we could really do something together if we merge our ideas into one!

In your own words, define sustainability. What got you interested in sustainability and what is your relation to the topic? How do you believe sustainability and the topics of food, fashion, and lifestyle go hand in hand?

Sustainability is trying to maintain a lifestyle that benefits everything more than it harms anything. I personally got interested in sustainability in my Human Geography class, where we learned how awful the fashion industry is and how much waste it produces year to year. I decided then that I would stop buying clothes I don’t need, and I tried to limit shopping from brands known to be part of the problem. While I was more concerned with the clothes I buy/wear, I realized soon enough that everything around me can harm the environment one way or another. The toxins in my cleaning products, the foods I waste, the plastic bags I get from stores, everything around me could potentially cause more pollution. That was why when Zeinab and I decided to create an organization, we tried to look at the bigger picture and attack as many problems as we could instead of focusing just on the food/fashion industry.

What action do you believe everyone could/should be involved in to create a positive change and impact on climate change and the environment? What are you most excited about for the future?

I think a big part of causing change is being informed. If everyone knew what fast fashion is and how much waste comes from the food industry, more people would be willing to change their lifestyles. Sustainable living is unfortunately a privilege; it can get very expensive to buy organic products that produce less waste and sustainable clothes that last a while. However, even if you cannot be fully sustainable right now, you can still try your best in being as sustainable as you can. I do have hope in our future and I think that a lot of us are moving in the right direction. I am excited to see our future, as time goes on and our fight against climate change grows stronger. 

Do you have any advice for people who want to help the environment, particularly fight climate change, but don’t know where to start? What advice can you give for similar organizations like yours, such as Eco-Youth, that will help them to keep posting and growing their platform?

My advice would be to start small. Don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to cut out everything that is deemed unsustainable, because that is simply not realistic. Try to buy less clothes than you do right now. Join some sort of club or organization where you can talk with other people who want to help the environment. Do some research on your own, if that interests you. Just try to incorporate this idea of sustainability into your life little by little. As for other organizations, I would say try to reach out to people. If you know a local activist who is fighting the same fight as you, reach out and see if they would like to talk with your organization. Attend some webinars and connect with other organizations. We are still small at EcoHouse, and I still have lots to learn, but those are just a few things I picked up over the past few months.

How was your first campaign that attacked fast fashion? Tell us more about it.

Our first campaign was pretty successful. It was the first time we launched EcoHouse Teens, so we had to wait some time before people got to see our content. It was really fun to interview local sustainable shop owners, and we even got to create a fun video on how to use Depop! Overall, I think our campaign was great, especially considering it was our first time operating as an organization. Zeianb and I dedicated a lot of time into making sure it went by smoothly and we are more than happy with how it turned out.

What is the second campaign that is currently occurring? How is Eco-Youth collaborating with EcoHouse Teens to contribute to this campaign?

Our second campaign is concerned with the food industry. We are trying to inform people on how the food industry contributes to pollution, workers’ abuse, and other serious issues. We try to post information that would allow people to take action and limit their contribution to an unsustainable industry. We are so excited to collaborate with Eco-Youth on this campaign because we are all for working with other youth organizations. Eco-Youth and EcoHouse both have a similar mission, and Eco-Youth is helping us by getting our campaign out there to their audience through these articles. We are so excited to see what can come from our collaboration!

What great things do EcoHouse Teens plan to do next? What is its future beyond the campaigns?

Our hope is to continue spreading awareness and engaging with other teens. In the future, we hope to have branches in different places that spread our mission. In order to cause real change, we need both the people who can demand for change and the people that can implement those changes. We hope that our voices will be heard by our elected officials, who can create laws that will cause the change we need. Our main goal will always be to spread awareness because being informed is step one of causing permanent change.

Where can people learn more about you and EcoHouse Teens?

You can find us on Instagram @ecohouseteens . We also have a Medium where we post some articles @ecohouseteens . We are currently working on a website, so make sure to follow our Instagram for more updates on us!