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-I meet many, many children who really want to help,
but they don't quite know what to do,
and that's why I started our Roots & Shoots program
back in 1991 with 12 high school students in Tanzania
who wanted to know what they could do
to help to make this a better world.
And from that little start, this program was launched.
And right from the beginning, the most important message was,
every single individual has a role to play,
every single individual matters,
every single individual makes some impact
on the environment every single day,
and we have a choice as to what kind of impact we make.
So, from the very beginning,
because I learned in the rainforest
how everything is interconnected,
we decided that the group of young people,
between them, would choose three projects.
We didn't tell them what to do,
although we can advise them and give them information.
They get to choose, so they choose things they care about.
And one project will be to help people,
one project will be to help animals,
and one project will be to help the environment we all share.
And having discussed what they're concerned about,
they then discuss, "Well, what can we do about it?"
and then they roll up their sleeves,
and they get out there, and they take action.
So, it could be planting trees to reforest an area.
It could be collecting trash.
It could be growing organic vegetables.
It could be raising money
to help victims of hurricanes or earthquakes.
It could be going to volunteer in an soup kitchen --
anything like that.
And the young people really do have tremendous ideas.
So, even as I'm speaking right now, around the world,
there are young people actually making a difference.
And I think what's really particularly exciting,
what's come out of this program,
is a theme that runs through it.
Like, we need to break down the barriers
that we build all the time
between people of different nations,
people of different cultures, people of different religions,
and between us and the natural world.
And I am always telling the young people that,
you know, we may have different colored skin,
different colored clothes, different cultures,
we may eat different foods,
but if we fall down and cut ourselves,
the pain is the same, the tears are the same.
Our blood is the same.
We even know that scientifically through DNA analysis now.
If we're happy, we laugh.
We have the same kind of emotion,
no matter whether we're in China, the U.S.,
or in Africa.
And if we're sad, then, as I say,
the tears are the same.
And so this Roots & Shoots program,
the last thing I'll say is, why is it called Roots & Shoots?
Well, because if you think of a tree -- and I love trees --
when it begins to grow,
even the biggest tree comes from a small seed,
and when that seed starts to grow,
little roots appear and a little shoot,
and you can pick it up, and it seems really weak and small,
but those little roots,
to reach the water that the tree will need,
can work through rocks and eventually push them aside,
and that little shoot, to reach the sunlight,
can work through cracks in a brick wall
and eventually knock it down.
So, if we think of the rocks and the walls
as all the problems we humans have inflicted on the planet,
environmental and social, then this program is about hope.
Hundreds and thousands of young people around the world
can break through,
can make this a better world for people,
animals, and the environment.
And a key component of this whole program is respect --
respect for each other,
respect for animals, respect for nature.