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FACTBOX-In Greta's footsteps: 10 young climate activists fighting for change

by Sonia Elks | @SoniaElks | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Friday, 27 September 2019 14:45 GMT

A young woman carries a cardboard cutout depicting Greta Thunberg as she takes part in the Global Climate Strike of the movement Fridays for Future in Vienna, Austria September 27, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

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Children and young people around the world are leading calls for action to curb global warming and protect their future

By Sonia Elks

LONDON, Sept 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As a growing youth climate movement gathers steam, children and young people around the world are leading calls for action to curb global warming and protect their future.

Media coverage has focused on 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who this week joined 15 other youth campaigners in a landmark complaint to the United Nations arguing states' failure to tackle climate change had breached children's rights.

Here are some of her co-signatories and other youth leaders fighting against climate change globally:

1. Alexandria Villasenor, 14, is a founder of the U.S. climate strike and protests outside the United Nations every Friday. "I've been forced to organise a revolution instead of doing normal kid things," she said.

2. Ridhima Pandey, 11, from India, is already a veteran campaigner. Aged nine, she filed a legal case against the government for failing to take action on climate change, and joined the petition to the United Nations.

3. Brazilian Artemisa Xakriaba, 19, is an indigenous Amazonian youth leader and member of an alliance that protects 600 million hectares (1.5 million acres) of forest. She campaigns on the impacts of climate change on the Amazon.

4. Raina Ivanova, 15, is among Germany's school strikers and helped bring the U.N. petition. She says climate fears disrupt her life and even her dreams, while her younger sisters are already asking about global warming.

5. Ugandan Leah Namugerwa, 15, began campaigning after seeing news reports of landslides wiping out a Ugandan village. She joins climate strikes every Friday and is pushing for a ban on plastic bags.

6. Russian Margarita Naumenko, 15, is one of the youngest members of a fast-growing Russian climate movement, despite challenges from authorities who are wary of protests and have refused to give permission to some environmental demonstrations.

7. Tunisian Raslen Jbeli, 17, is among the children who filed the U.N. petition. He said he has personally felt the impacts of climate change after surviving a wildfire that claimed his neighbours' homes last year.

8. Chiara Sacchi, 17, from Argentina, is also among the U.N. petitioners. She has called for climate change to be taught in schools, and said: "It is our future and world leaders should hear us."

9. Wu Guanzhuo, 17, helped to bring a court case that forced a polluting factory in China to close, and is fighting to raise climate awareness in his country, despite tight restrictions on protest by authorities.

10. University student Yero Sarr, 18, founded Senegal's fledgling youth climate movement. "If we Africans are suffering the most from climate change and Europeans lead the fight for us, that's a problem," he said. Sources: Thomson Reuters Foundation, Twitter, Childrenvsclimatecrisis website, Earther website, Democracy Now

(Reporting by Sonia Elks @soniaelks; Editing by Laurie Goering and Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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