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AYCC Climate Justice Summit

WHAT DO WE WANT? CLIMATE JUSTICE. WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW.

These were the words chanted by over 200 high school students from across Victoria that came together to learn and fight for climate justice. Over the course of two days, students attended a summit run by the AYCC (Australian Youth Climate Coalition) organisation. Thirteen students from Nossal signed up and went along with Ms Ball to take part in the summit. We arrived at the Victorian Trades Hall and after registering and participating in icebreaker games, we were seated in a main hall and introduced to our AYCC buddies who would accompany us for the next two days. Our first speaker, Nathan Eize from the Bureau of Meteorology, spoke about the science behind climate change and its impacts on the earth. We then had Lily Gardener from Oxfam Australia who came to talk to us about climate justice. In her speech, she talked about food security and how climate change has impacted third world countries. After a quick break for morning tea, we were accompanied by our AYCC buddies to our workshops. Our workshop groups enabled us to meet like-minded students from various different school, who shared the same passions and interests as us. These workshops focused on how climate change impacted different people around the world. We then had lunch, during which ran the Hunger Banquet. The Hunger Banquet meant that we were all given different qualities and amounts of food. Few people received lasagne and were given waiters and tables, the majority were given a sandwich and a rug to sit on, and the rest were given rice on lettuce and were seated outside. This exercise was done to show the inequality in our world and it was extremely eye-opening. We ended the day by planning campaigns within our school groups to run at Nossal.

The next day we again began our day in the main hall and listened to inspiring speakers who introduced us to organisations such as Seed, an organisation focused on the impacts of climate change on indigenous people. We then broke off into our school groups to finish off campaign planning and put together action timelines. After a quick break for morning tea we were back in the main hall to listen to a talk on the staggering effects of climate change on our beautiful Great Barrier Reef. With this talk fresh in our minds, we went back to our workshops with our AYCC buddies. We focused on writing our personal narratives on climate change and why we personally wanted to make a change. This was a very beneficial exercise as it brought out everyone’s stories and experiences and helped us to compare our opinions on climate justice.

After a quick lunch break came the most exciting part of the summit. The action. With our colourful props in our hands and our chants ready, we were soon heading to the steps of the State Library. There, we took our stand and made our voices heard to the wider public with chants and personal stories. On that day, over 200 students did their part on their journey towards 100% renewable energy. In such a short amount of time, we all had learnt so much about how to limit the effects of climate change and how to make a difference in our own school communities.

Rania Khan, Anjana Krishnan and Ann Maria Augustin

Year 9 Students