Activists

“Most people do not care what they do to the environment. I noticed adults were not willing to offer leadership and I chose to volunteer myself. Environmental injustice is injustice to me.”
As a 14-year-old member of Fridays for Future Uganda, Leah Namugerwa strikes every Friday for climate justice. Leah was inspired by Greta Thunberg but was truly moved to act after seeing the famine caused by drought and landslides from climate change. Despite the Ugandan government’s harsh response to strikers, Leah continues to fight for change. Currently, she is demanding a Ugandan plastic bag ban, and her petition can be found here.
Leah talked with us about what it’s like to climate strike in Uganda, and how she ignored the critics who called her strikes ‘weird’ — read the full post here.

Leah Namugerwa) is a youth climate activist in Uganda. She is known for leading tree planting campaigns and for starting a petition to enforce the plastic bag ban in Uganda. Following inspiration from Greta Thunberg, she began supporting school strikes in February 2019 with fellow Fridays for Future Uganda organizer Sadrach Nirere.

Namugerwa spoke at the World Urban Forum in 2020 and was a youth delegate at COP25. Her uncle, Tim Mugerwa is also a prominent environmentalist in Uganda. Leah Namugerwas is a member of the Anglican Church of Uganda.

Namugerwa heard of Greta Thunberg and her Friday strikes in 2018. She was later inspired to take similar action as Greta Thunberg at 13, after she watched a local news report about mudslides and flooding in rural sections of the country.^[1] Namugerwa has since become a prominent young climate advocate and an integral member of Africa’s most prominent chapter of Fridays for Future taking place in Uganda. She teamed up with Sadrach Nirere, Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, and her cousin Bob Motavu to birth the Fridays for Future Uganda. She has been engaged in Friday striking since February 2019, calling for more climate actions, and she has led the writing of a petition to enforce the ban of plastic bags.

Leah Namugerwa celebrated her 15th birthday by planting 200 trees instead of throwing a birthday party, and since then she has launched the Birthday Trees project, to give out seedlings to those who wish to celebrate their birthdays by planting trees. Her major goal is to see the enforcement of current climate legislation (Paris 21 agreement) and to attract more coverage of issues of climate change.^] She organized marches along with other young climate advocates to mark the global climate strike on 29 November 2020, and the lakeshore of Kampala’s Ggaba Beach was also cleaned to celebrate the day; Dorothy Nalubega, a member of a women’s agriculturalist and environmental group was also in attendance. Namugerwa has continuously called on the government of Uganda to fully implement the Paris Climate Agreement.

Follow Leah on Twitter @NamugerwaLeah

17-year-old Jamie Margolin is the founder and co-executive director of Zero Hour, a youth- and women of color-led movement that aims to support new young activists and organizers with the tools, training, and resources that they need to fight climate change and protect our natural resources. Jamie speaks passionately and urgently about the intersectional issues of social justice, environmental protections, climate change, indigenous rights, and more, and isn’t afraid to call out corporate leaders and others who have contributed to our environmental crises.

Jamie Margolin  is an American climate justice activist and served as the co-executive director of Zero Hour. Margolin identifies as a lesbian and speaks openly about her experiences as an LGBT person. She has written for various media outlets, such as CNN and Huffington Post.

Her writing about climate change has appeared in many publications including HuffPost, Teen Ink and CNN. She was part of Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 class of 2018. In 2018, she was also named as one of People Magazine‘s 25 Women Changing the World.

She has garnered some notoriety as a plaintiff in the Aji P. v. Washington case, suing the state of Washington for their inaction against climate change on the basis of a stable climate being a human right.

In September 2018, Margolin was part of a youth group that sued Governor Jay Inslee and the State of Washington over greenhouse-gas emissions in the state. The case was dismissed by a King County Superior Court judge, who ruled the case to be political one that must be resolved by the Governor and the legislature. It has since been appealed Washington Court of Appeals.

In September 2019, she was asked to testify on a panel called “Voices Leading the Next Generation on the Global Climate Crisis” alongside Greta Thunberg for the United States House of Representatives.

Follow Jamie on Twitter @Jamie_Margolin and Instagram @jamie_s_margolin

“If a politician comes to my door, I start asking them hard questions. Some of them are shocked . . . The politicians we elect this weekend will have a direct influence over whether or not my generation inherits a liveable planet.”
Every friday morning, 16-year-old Saoi O’Connor travels two hours from her home to the city to protest. Saoi has been dissenting in her own way since the age of four when her parents started the Fair-Trade Committee in her town. Now she is one of the critical figures of Ireland’s youth climate rebellion.

Saoi O’Connor began the Fridays for Future strike in Cork City on 11 January 2019 outside Cork City Hall^[holding a poster which says “The Emperor Has No Clothes”. O’Connor made their first media appearance aged 3 as part of a fair trade campaign during St Patrick’s Day. O’Connor moved away from mainstream education at Skibbereen Community School to continue their studies home-schooling to allow them to work full time on climate justice activism full-time. In February 2019, O’Connor travelled to the European Parliament in Strasbourg to join fellow activists for the climate debates.

O’Connor was one of the 157 delegates to the 2019 RTÉ Youth Assembly on Climate, and attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid the same year.^[7] In December 2019, O’Connor was awarded the Outstanding Individual at the Cork Environmental Forum’s Awards ceremony. During the ceremony, they remarked on how little had changed regarding climate change policy since they began their climate strike. The Fridays for Future Cork group, of which O’Connor is a member, also received a commendation from the Forum.

Follow Saoi on Twitter @saoi4climate

Just at 9 years old, Lilly Platt, started going on a war to end plastic pollution. When Lilly first moved to Holland her grandfather began teaching her to speak Dutch, and to help her learn numbers, they collected pieces of plastic trash and counted them. She no longer needs the practice but she’s still picking up plastic. Today, Lilly is a Youth Ambassador for the Plastic Pollution Coalition and a Child Ambassador for HOW Global and World Cleanup Day.

Platt is known for her youth and for going on peaceful strikes to voice out environmental concerns. She is the Global Ambassador of YouthMundus, Earth.org, and WODI; youth ambassador for Plastic Pollution Coalition and How Global; and child ambassador for the World Cleanup Day. Platt initially went viral on social media after posting litter of plastic she picked up—sorted accordingly. Over the years she has picked up more than 100,000 of pieces of litter.  Platt was born in Britain. Her family moved to Netherlands when she was seven years old.

In 2015, Platt was walking along a park in the Netherlands with her grandfather when she noticed litter of plastic scattered on the ground. She decided to count them to practice her Dutch. They gathered 91 pieces of plastic within 10 minutes. Her grandfather further told her how the trash ends up as plastic soup. The said incident triggered her environmental initiative, and at 7 years old, she started Lilly’s Plastic Pickup. Through Lilly’s Plastic Pickup, she picks up litter and sorts them meticulously. She posts them on social media so as to raise awareness on the issue. Over the years Platt has picked up more than 100,000 pieces of trash, ranging from bottles, cigarette packets, drink cartons etc. Through Lilly’s Plastic Cleanup, Platt also shares the effect of plastic on wildlife and the ecosystem. Since going viral her initiative has garnered international acclaim.

Ever since she was a child, Platt has shown fondness for animals, particularly those considered physically unappealing. She was bullied in school because of this, and only one of her peers showed interest in her cleanup activities. Platt then moved to The King’s School where many of her classmates participated in her clean-up efforts.

In the 2019 Dutch elections, Platt’s grandfather voted on her behalf, as she is campaigning for the ban of plastic. Platt took a video and encouraged others to do the same.

In September 2018, Platt saw Greta Thunberg‘s protest outside the Swedish Parliament concerning the enforcement of Paris Agreement. She was inspired and decided to go on strike too. After a few weeks, Greta Thunberg joined Platt’s strikes in the Netherlands, considering the Netherlands had been one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gas in the European Union. Both were invited to Brussels where they attended a climate rally outside the European Parliament.

Every Friday, Platt goes on strike outside government buildings to protest regarding the climate crisis,^[with or without company.

Follow Lilly on Twitter @lillyspickup

“My father taught me to see the magic in everything. Growing up, magic was in the sunrise and the rainfall. In every expression of life, no matter how small. I think that that was one of the most valuable wisdom that shaped who I was as a young boy. It gave me the perspective to see what was behind the dysfunction of our society, of our broken world, our dying ecosystems and corrupt leaders”

While Xiuhtezcatl started speaking about the environment at just age 6, he is now a 19-year-old indigenous activist, musician, and the youth director of Earth Guardians, an organization that trains youth across the world to use civic engagement and the arts to help solve environmental issues. As a hip-hop artist, Xiuhtezcatl also often uses music to convey powerful environmental messages. He is also not afraid to confront the government head-on, as he was one of the 21 plaintiffs that sued the federal government for their lack of action on climate change.

also known by the initial X, is an American environmental activist and hip hop artist. Martinez was youth director of Earth Guardians until 2019, a worldwide environmental organization.

Martinez has spoken to large crowds about the effects of fossil fuels on the indigenous and other marginalized communities. He has spoken at the United Nations several times, and he gained popularity after delivering a 2015 speech at the United Nations General Assembly in English, Spanish and his native language, Nahuatl.

Martinez is one of 21 plaintiffs involved in Juliana v. United States, a lawsuit filed against the U.S. government for failing to act on climate change. The lawsuit was filed in 2015, and a federal court rejected the government’s move to dismiss the case in November 2016. Martinez is also one of seven plaintiffs in the Martinez v. Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission case; that case is a state-level lawsuit similar to Juliana v. United States.

As a teenager, Martinez has given TED talks and was invited to speak before the United Nations on environmental policy. In June 2015, he spoke at the age of 15 in English, Spanish, and Nahuatl before the UN General Assembly on Climate Change. Martinez urged immediate climate action saying, “What’s at stake right now is the existence of my generation.”

That same year, he competed with young musicians from around the world who submitted self-produced music “to inspire the negotiations” at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with their music and Martinez’s selection “Speak for the Trees” was chosen as the Jury Award Winner.

Martinez asserts that education and young people are key elements of the movement for significant social and environmental change: “The marching in the streets, the lifestyle changes haven’t been enough so something drastic needs to happen. The change that we need is not going to come from a politician, from an orangutan in office, it’s going to come from something that’s always been the driver of change – people power, power of young people.” When addressing the criticism of young people overusing technology in a 2016 interview with Bill Maher, Martinez noted that technology also brings people together to focus on a shared concern: “I think it’s an important tool that we have for networking and connecting with people. Social media and technology – it’s either a downfall and distraction for our generation, or a powerful tool we can use.”

Follow Xiuhtezcatl on Twitter @xiuhtezcatl and Instagram @xiuhtezcatl

“We will not stop until politicians and leaders decide to take action”

14-year-old David Wicker lives in Italy and has been organising groups of students to protest via Fridays for Future in Turin, Italy and internationally with the purpose of asking governments all around the world to place the Climate Change issue as their top priority in their agendas and to start respecting the regulation of international agreements and treaties.

Find David on Twitter @davidwicker_hf and Instagram @davidwickerhf

“When there’s about 200 species going extinct every day, it’s quite scary. So you have to do everything you can.”

From her small town in the remote, mountainous Scottish Highlands, this 13 years old is helping to build a UK movement of children demanding more action on climate change. Holly Gillibrand is a young ambassador for Scotland: The Big Picture and a campaigner for animal welfare charity OneKind.

Holly Gillibrand (born 2005) is a Scottish environmental activist. She enjoys football, the outdoors, and rock climbing. She was inspired by Greta Thunberg, and starting at age 13, she skipped school for an hour every Friday as part of the school strike for climate. She is an organizer for Fridays for Future Scotland. She has made changes in her daily life to reduce her carbon footprint. She has gained support through social media.

She was named 2019 Glasgow Times Young Scotswoman of the Year. She was also named one of 30 inspiring women on the BBC‘s Woman’s Hour Power List 2020 and was interviewed on the show.She has written for the Lochaber Times.

In August 2020, she supported Chris Packham in a national campaign that aimed to stop wildlife crime. In November of that year, she and other youth activists had a Q&A with Alok Sharma. She serves as youth advisor for the charity Heal Rewilding, whose goal is to return more land to nature.

Follow Holly on Twitter @HollyWildChild

  “It is my future, it is the younger ones’ future, and it’s less the older ones’ future.”

Isra Hirsi is the 16-year old co-founder and co-executive of the US Youth Climate Strike, the Inspired by the Flint water crisis, Isra fights for climate justice. As a black Muslim woman, she emphasizes the importance of intersectionality in the movement for climate justice. She is also a part of MN Can’t Wait, a youth coalition of organizations calling upon the Minnesota government to take action. Isra Hirsi (born February 22, 2003) is an American environmental activist. She co-founded and served as the co-executive director of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike. In 2020, she was named in Fortune‘s 40 Under 40 Government and Politics list.

Hirsi grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the daughter of Somali American U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omarand Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi. At the age of 12, she was one of the participants protesting for justice for Jamar Clark at the Mall of America.^] Hirsi attended Minneapolis South High School, from which she graduated in 2021. She became involved in climate activism after joining her high school’s environmental club in her freshman year.

Hirsi coordinated the organization of hundreds of student-led strikes across the United States on March 15 and May 3, 2019. She co-founded the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, the American arm of a global youth climate change movement, in January 2019. She acts as the co-executive director of this group. In 2019, she won a Brower Youth Award. That same year, Hirsi received the Voice of the Future Award. In 2020, Hirsi was placed on BET‘s “Future 40” list.

It is reported that Hirsi will attend Barnard College of Columbia University in fall 2021.

Follow Isra on Twitter @israhirsi and Instagram @israhirsi