Amid the depression and chaos of the last few weeks I’ve seen, and been able to be a part of so many beautiful, inspiring things.
I’ve walking with 100,000 people of every age and nationality to call for a safe and stable climate.
I’ve seen 3 young people prove, as they finish their 46 day hunger fast, that achieving the ‘impossible’ is just a matter of having the courage to try and the will to keep trying.
I’ve seen young people take to the stage in the main negotiations to tell the world what this means to us.
I’ve stood at a Vigil for Survival amid hundreds of other people where every single candle represented 10,000 people who had called for a real deal at Copenhagen.
I’ve helped to fill the greyness and endless corridors of the UN with colour and life and music.
We’ve shared songs, games, stories, and experiences with the Kenyan Youth Delegation. After working with them all year, we can now put names to faces and stories.
I’ve had less sleep than I’ve ever had before and worked harder than I’ve ever done before. But I know so many people who’ve given even more than I have and have been doing this all year. Going back again and again to the UN, traveling overland for weeks, or having no money for months because they give all their time to this.
I’ve sat with a hall full of people as Obama announced the Copenhagen Accord. I’ve shared the disempowerment, the sadness and the anger of that moment. Twenty minutes later I was stood protesting with hundreds of other young people outside the Conference Centre as the delegates filed out. It was 1 in the morning, well bellow freezing and snowing heavily but no one even considered not going.
I’ve laughed so much. Cried too, but laughed more. I’ve made some of the best friends I’ve ever had. I’ve met so many amazing people from around the world who are working so hard and giving so much to this struggle.
I’ve sat and shared ideas with young people from Kenya, China, India, Lebanon, Canada, the USA, Ghana, Malaysia, Nepal, Australia, the Maldives, Belgium, Sweden, New Zealand, Serbia…I could go on. And I know that despite all our differences, what unites is far stronger than what divides us.
I know that there are hundreds of thousands of people who came to Copenhagen and that every one of us has a lifetime worth of passion and energy to give to this movement.