Fridays for Future

Fridays for Future

Last August, there was a pretty yet unusual sight to see a 15 year old stand outside the Swedish Parliament with Hand Painted sign boards and self made fliers. That was Greta Thunberg protesting for a stronger Action on Climate Change.

Greta Thunberg was reading about Climate Change since she was 10 years. She decided to call for action by herself against the economy and law systems responsible for lax attitude and actions towards Climate Change.

Every Friday, Greta began with striking alone in front of the Swedish Parliament. Her friends, peers initially did not show enthusiasm to join her. In the coming weeks, her friends skipped school too and joined her on her strike for Climate Action. This snowballed into a movement of millions of children, youth, adults, scientists joining her “Fridays for Future” strike for Climate Action. This Strike spread beyond Sweden to Australia, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, the United States of America amongst other countries.

These events also landed her to present her call for Climate Action in international forums like UN. Where she said – “We knew there was a climate crisis. We have watched as politicians fumble, playing a political game rather than facing the facts that the solutions we need cannot be found within the current system. They don’t want to face the facts – we need to change the system if we are to try to act on the climate crisis. Other adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But we don’t want your hope. We don’t want you to be hopeful. We want you to panic and we want you to take action. We want you to join us.”

On March 15th, 2019, Greta called for Global Action for Climate Change. This event was joined by children, youth and adults in 112 countries around the world. We at FSL India, were motivated to join the global movement!

We chose not to strike but take an alternative approach. We chose 3 schools to do the event as most of the others had their exams going on. Manjesh, Dinesh and Venkatesh, Manjunath Kannal and Ashwini facilitated this sessions in their respective schools.

Venkatesh and team screened the talk of Greta Thunberg and explained the prominence of the day. The students shared their perspectives on climate change. Some of them were able to connect the global phenomenon to the change to sea levels in Kundapur. All of them stood up and extended their hand forward and took an oath to adopt earth friendly practices. They concluded the session with singing songs on nature and mother earth.

Manjunath Kannal being a nature and wildlife enthusiast himself took this event to another level. He arranged a big screening of the video to the entire school. He initiated the session with conversations on Climate Change. The children who were aware of the phenomenon raised their voices and shared their observations and perspectives. They completely agreed to everything Greta spoke in her talk. A few said that “she was a big inspiration” as she was as the same age as theirs yet she is creating a huge impact in the world with her cause.

Ashwini was fascinated watching Greta’s invincible conviction and her ability to inspire the whole world to take action. Videos of climate change were screened at Hombegowda school, Bangalore and the group was asked interesting questions on climate change. The well aware students spoke about the pressing need and also connected it to their academics, change in weather patterns and increase in temperature. This built the stage for Greta Thunberg’s talk.

The boys eagerly shared the importance of taking action towards climate change. A few suggested that there was no point in them doing anything because they are too small of make a difference. To which one responded – “Every drop counts and makes an ocean”. The facilitator pointed out how Greta is one girl of their age, yet making such a huge impact on people and climate change. And now, she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She stands as a wonderful example that we are never too small or insignificant to make an impact. The session ended with a spirit of “If she can, I can too!”

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