In Pics: 6 Women Who Are Silently Saving The World And You Didn't Even Know. The year 2020 has been a rather difficult one, especially for human beings, but of all the things that it was, it was indeed an eye-opener.
The world witnessed, and is still witnessing, a global pandemic, as the novel coronavirus has evolved its strain. Global pandemics, climate change, natural disasters, poor soil conditions and deforestation are a few issues threatening the survival of living beings on earth. These issues are at the heart of sustainable development. Ignoring them has many possible consequences, such as rising sea levels, extreme droughts, erosion and loss of forests, increase in slum populations, species extinctions, among others. Therefore, it is the need of the hour that we switch to sustainable living and advocate for environmental justice for all. We present to you five powerful, admirable women under the age of 25 who are fighting the fight against climate change. Licypriya Kangujam She is often regarded as India’s Greta Thunberg.
Milli Thawani Vanessa Nakate. Climate Activist Vanessa Nakate Wants A More Inclusive Movement In 2021. Vanessa Nakate is a force.
The 24-year-old Ugandan climate activist is courageous, knowledgeable, kind — and unrelenting in her commitment to fighting what she calls a “real-time” battle. “In school, we are taught not to be afraid of climate change. [It] is talked about like something that happened in the past, or something that is coming in the far future that won’t affect us now,” she tells me over Zoom. But as she learned about it, she saw the ways climate change is an active, real-life crisis.
“For example, landslides, droughts, and floods,” she lists. Inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement, Nakate began striking for climate change, by herself, in front of the Ugandan Parliament in 2018. “I looked for examples of young people making a difference, such as Greta Thunberg and Malala [Yousafzai],” she explains. Being an activist in a community that is completely dominated by white people is not easy at all. Nakate has experienced this in real life.
Meet the young people of colour fighting for our planet. The Black Lives Matter uprisings show how hard marginalised voices fight to be heard.
The tragic events that sparked them prove that brutal racism still exists – and that centuries of exploitation and oppression have created an unfair world for people of colour today. That’s as true in the climate movement as anywhere else. Despite deep experience of environmental racism, and expertise fighting for social and environmental justice, people of colour are still left out. As a huge imperial power and the home of the industrial revolution, the UK holds a unique place in history as one of the greatest historic emitters of greenhouse gas emissions.
Today, people of colour worldwide bear some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis, while contributing the least to its causes. Most people know Greta Thunberg and the global youth climate movement she inspired. In early 2020, Ugandan youth delegate Vanessa Nakate was cropped out of a photograph at the World Economic Forum in Davos in early 2020. Young Activists Summit. Mohamad (19) grew up in Syria.
At the age of 12, he fled to Lebanon and ended up in a refugee camp where he was not able to go to school. With the help of his family and other volunteers, Mohamad founded the Gharsah School in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, which supports Syrian refugees through educational, psychosocial and civil empowerment for children, adolescents and women. The school now reaches 240 children and 500 women on a yearly basis. Mohamad is currently studying in Sweden, where he founded an NGO called Gharsah Sweden that aims to introduce the values of his work in Lebanon to local communities, as well as to raise funds to help sustain the Gharsah School.
His NGO developed emergency plans to address the COVID-19 pandemic, distribute food baskets and hygiene kits, provide psychological support during the lockdown and develop online learning. Greta Thunberg to world leaders: 'How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood'