Young Adult RCers at the Global Climate Action Summit
In September of this year, a delegation representing Sustaining All Life and United to End Racism went to Ramaytush Ohlone territory (San Francisco, California, USA) to host a series of events in connection with the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) and related grassroots climate justice actions. Here are excerpts from reports written by three of the young adults in the delegation. (More reports, from others in the delegation, will appear in the January Present Time.)
Seattle, Washington, USA
What stands out was being able to face big feelings about the realities in the world with open minds and with hearts full of hope that we can become better stewards of our planet while being able to have fun and smile.
San Jose, California, USA
Malinali Castañeda Romero, from Mexico City, Mexico, led beautifully by insisting that we include up-front interpreting whenever possible. She reminded us and the people who attended our events that English is not, by far, the only or most important language in the world. She explained language liberation beautifully. One participant, from Mexico, could not stop talking about how much he loved our practices regarding language liberation.
Occupied Dakota land and Anishinaabe territory aka Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
We decided to cancel a Sustaining All Life youth workshop so that we could attend a Youth in the Movement workshop led by a different organization. That proved to be a great plan because we connected with and learned from many amazing young activists we otherwise wouldn’t have met and then continued to build on our connection with them throughout the week. Most of them were Indigenous, from reservations in the Dakotas, and had a lot of experience with activism in youth communities. They’d taken part in the Standing Rock encampment and protests, including the relay run from Standing Rock to Washington, D.C. Meeting them showed me it is more possible than I thought to connect with and organize youth and how powerful we can be within the larger movement.
Seattle, Washington, USA
(Present Time 193, October 2018)