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Climate Change and Future Youth Leaders:

Today thousands of students worldwide have walked out of lessons to strike, demanding action on climate change.

At Fotonow we support the actions of these young people, which is why we attended today’s strike and made this short film. However, schools in Plymouth have taken mixed positions on the strikes.

Our society chronically underestimates the abilities of young people; they are often criticised as apathetic, lacking engagement, or “snowflakes”. How much of that is a reflection of our adult insecurities about our own choices and actions?

We work with many young people from a wide cross-section of society through our informal education projects. In these contexts children and young people prove themselves to be nuanced in debate, to be determined, focussed, balanced and fair, holding themselves and others to account in the process.

These qualities are the essence of the active citizen that we as educators all aspire to nurture in the young people we support. The climate strikes present a valuable learning opportunity that we should all embrace.

As David Reed of social action group Generation Change puts it; “what does excellence in education look like if it’s not pupils being engaged enough on issues such as climate change to do something about them?”