What does compassion look like when it means confronting the root causes of injustice, challenging systems of power, standing in solidarity, and refusing to accept that things have to remain the way they are? These are some of the questions at the heart of the Charter for Compassion Global Youth Conference 2026: Radical Compassion in Action for Justice taking place virtually on September 23–24, 2026.
We are deeply honored to welcome Kumi Naidoo as one of our keynote speakers. A lifelong human rights and environmental justice activist, Kumi has spent decades at the intersection of movements for justice, democracy, climate action, and human dignity. He was the first person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International and later served as Secretary-General of Amnesty International. Today, he serves as President of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative and continues to work across movements through initiatives such as Africans Rising and the Global Artivism Initiative.
Kumi’s work has consistently centered on a willingness to challenge power, build movements, take risks, and ask difficult questions about the world we have inherited, and the world we have the power to create. That is precisely why his voice belongs in a conversation about radical compassion.
The Charter for Compassion Global Youth Conference 2024: Youth for Compassionate Advocacy & Actions and Global Youth Conference 2025: Compassionate Leadership for Action & Impact were a remarkable display of youth power, unity, and advocacy, with over 1200 participants registered for both conferences bringing together changemakers from across the world. Building on the momentum of previous years, this conference will continue to amplify the voices and visions of youth who are advocating for change, and actively shaping more just, inclusive, and compassionate futures.
This year’s gathering deepens its focus on the intersection of compassion and justice. At a time marked by escalating conflict, justice is no longer an abstract ideal, it is an urgent global imperative. Across contexts, young people are witnessing and experiencing the consequences of unjust systems, while also organizing, resisting, and reimagining what a more equitable world can look like. Our collective humanity calls not only for awareness, but for courageous compassion, accountability, and sustained action. This year, we are reclaiming the word radical in its truest sense. Derived from the Latin radix, meaning “root,” radical compassion asks us to look beneath the surface of injustice. It asks us to respond to suffering, but to also understand and transform the systems, structures, and conditions that produce it.
For young people around the world already organizing for human rights, climate justice, peace, equality, and liberation, this is more than an idea, it is a call to action. Few understand the demands of that call better than someone who has spent decades working at the forefront of global movements for justice and change. Kumi's journey offers a powerful reminder that movements for change are rarely comfortable or straightforward, they require moral courage, and for us to imagine forms of leadership rooted in our shared humanity.
As a global community of young changemakers, we are excited to hear Kumi reflect on what it means to turn compassion into courageous, collective action, and what it takes to remain rooted in our values while working to transform a deeply unjust world.
We cannot wait to hear Kumi bring his experience, and his unmistakable spirit of movement building to this year’s Global Youth Conference. Register here and join us September 23–24, 2026, to be part of a global community asking what it means to lead with courage, challenge injustice, and put radical compassion into action.
Kumi Naidoo’s Keynote will take place on Wednesday, September 23, 2026 at 10:30 AM PT / 1:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM UTC / 7:30 PM SAST / 11:00 PM IST
