My Experiences at the Virtual Youth Summit
Have you wondered what happens next when you have finally learned what you needed to get through a certain stage in life? I know I have.
You see I have been a climate activist for about more than a year now and I have always wondered what would be next for me. Then on one particular day I got an invitation to join a Virtual Youth Summit hosted by 350Africa, African Climate Alliance, and South Africa Youth Centre for Climate Change, for young climate activists like me.
Believe me I didn’t expect people from all over the country to be there, and not only that I could see a clear picture of how many climate activists there were in my very own country! For the next few weeks I started my journey to ‘upgrade’ – how I will refer to how my learnings changed most of my perspective about climate change and climate activism- my life’s stage as a climate activist, with the hosts and speakers on the Virtual Youth Summit as my teachers.
The first session’s focus was to educate us about the effects of climate change. Of course, by then I was already familiar with them and could explain how they happen and how they affected people, but what I didn’t know so well was the mathematical science behind them. Ever wondered why a group of climate activists named their organisation 350.org? Turns out that this number represents the amount of carbon dioxide in parts per million that they strive to achieve so that the effects of climate change could be slowed down and life on Earth would grow at comfortable conditions. One thing that I finally got from this session was how a slightly small average global temperature change could impact over very sensitive ecosystem.
As I said before, these past sessions have been like the class that upgraded my stage in life, so it should come to no surprise that I jumped from actively participating in a movement to learning how to start a movement and keep the momentum going. I only noticed the hints, from the organisation that I joined and the movements I followed, of how successful movements were able to gather more members and keep them inspired to follow their cause. I was able to link this all together during our second session where we got to see the behind the scenes work that movements did to ensure that those interested were kept up-to-date with the similar events that they would be planning and also actively help the message of the movement get across to even more people.
We also formed groups where we everyone notes down the challenges we faced or have noticed when organising a movement, such as using limited resources to their fullest extent (e.g. Spreading the movement through social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook), ensuring that people knew about events beforehand (e.g. Sharing the location to avoid people getting lost) and also ensuring the safety of the participants (I learned that some movements use a certain theme do that they could identify Intruders who would potentially use the event as a cover to do illegal actions). Lastly I also learned the importance of applying for a action permit beforehand and attending regular meetings with law enforcement agencies, so that the movement goes smoothly without any delays or legal action (especially when minors are involved).
And then there’s the Day of Action (DOA), the day where many actions take place in different locations all following the same unifying theme. Most people can easily link this to the Global Climate Strikes that have been going on over the last recent years, and they are right!
In one of the last sessions we met some of the activists from around the world who discussed their challenges during the DOA where some got arrested multiple times (which, even though it was in accordance with the law, I thought was crazy), some people didn’t commit to helping organise the movement and only showed up during the actual movement to get the credit and the most impact of all, learning that in Russia climate change was not taken seriously, it was considered to be a conspiracy theory that ‘crazy people with posters’ (climate activists) were trying to spread, hence minors were not allowed to protest and could face legal charges.
This made me in particular realise that the right to protest is no joke, it is a privilege that needs to be taken seriously as not everyone has access to it.
To conclude the Youth Virtual Summit was a refreshing and fun event to learn more about climate change activists, where I felt that everyone was free to express their ideas without holding back. This was very useful in ‘upgrading’ my stage as a climate activist and I hope more people will come to realise how important and serious saving our world is. I believe that Virtual Summits like this one are a great way to keep the movement growing stronger than ever during the coronavirus pandemic.
by Luvuyo Vakele, YouLead Alumnus
