A letter to my daughter, the future

As part of Letters to the Future at the Philanthropy Australia Conference 2026, Angel Owen, National Director at Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network, shared this letter reflecting on the future she hopes to help create.

Hey Future, Angel here.

You are my daughter. You are a strong cultural woman, deeply connected to Country, strong in community and staunch in your sovereignty. You carry the strength of the matriarchs who came before you. You carry our stories, our culture, our resilience and our responsibility to Country.

I don’t know exactly what the world will look like when you read this.

I hope you know that everything I am doing today is because I wanted you and your brothers to inherit more than a world where you have to survive. I wanted you all to inherit a world where you could thrive, because from where I am standing today, in 2026, I am scared for you.

I am scared of the impacts of climate change on country, culture and community. I am scared it will change your relationship with Country, that some of the places our family tells stories about, might no longer exist in the way they do today and that you might grow up knowing what Country once was, rather than being able
to experience it for yourself.

You come from island nations; K’gari, Konomie & Warraber. So when I think about your future, I don’t just think about climate change, I think about climate justice. I think about whether you will still have Country to connect to or whether you still have Country to come home to. I wonder if you will grow up knowing exactly who you are and more than anything, I don’t want you to just survive – I want you to thrive.

I want you to be strong in your culture, your identity and your community, and I don’t want you to ever have to choose between your identity and your survival. I want you to know that Mum is trying. I am trying to change the systems that have brought us here, so that you don’t have to spend your life fighting the same battles I have.

When I first found Seed, there were five of us, with a deep love for Country and the belief that young mob can create change. Today, there are thousands of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people creating that change. I have watched young people who were once too shy to speak in a room become leaders,
organisers and advocates.

Every time I see a young person step into their power, I think ‘this is why we do this work, because when young people are empowered to lead, the possibilities are endless’.

But, there is something I wish that people with resources and power understood. We don’t need saving. Our communities already have solutions. We carry more than 65,000 years of knowledge, experience and relationships with Country. What we need is to be entrusted, supported and resourced to lead.

Sometimes philanthropy makes that harder than it needs to be. There are hoops to jump through, measurements to meet and shiny outcomes to prove. But some of the most important things we create can’t be easily measured. You cannot put a number on a young person finding their voice, the moment someone reconnects or strengthens their culture, when a community is empowered to lead. But those things are change.

So, my daughter, I hope that by the time you read this, generosity means more than the dollars you give.

I hope it means:

• Handing back power;
• Empowering communities;
• Investing in long term change; and
• Backing the people who are already doing the work, because imagine what this country would look like if First Nations knowledge systems and leadership were treated as essential, rather than optional.

So this is what I promise you, my girl. I will show up, and keep showing up. I will keep fighting for Country, culture and community. I will keep building young people around me and continue to plant the seeds of the trees I will never sit under.

To the people in this room, I ask you to help me. Don’t just invest in the steps we are taking to get there, invest in the future we are trying to create. Trust the people already doing the work and back them in for the long haul. Be willing to share the power that brought you into this room.

This is long-term work, and long-term work needs long-term resourcing. It needs people willing to invest, even when they don’t yet see the tree. It needs people willing to trust the work happening today will create something bigger for all of us, because one day, my daughter will sit beneath those trees, and I want her to know that I planted them for her.

So, future, my daughter, if you are reading this one day, I hope you know this above everything else: you are strong, you are sovereign, you are community, you are resistance, you carry everything that came before you. But I hope you never have to find out how strong you need to be to survive, I hope I leave you a world where you can use that strength to thrive.

Love Mum.

Angel Owen is the National Director at Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network.