Youth Activist Profile: Anuna De Wever
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Anuna De Wever (she/he/they) was born in Belgium and became one of the leading figures in Belgium’s climate strike movement. They have played a key role in the School Strike for Climate Change movement in Belgium. They put their university studies on hold to engage in full-time climate change activism. They even had a weekly column in the Belgian magazine HUMO. HUMO is classified as a supermarket tabloid, which would have implications for its reach, a primary factor in raising awareness of climate change and resultant movements.
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Their Work:
1. School Strike For Climate Change
2. An international movement started by Greta Thunberg that has students from around the world skip classes on Fridays to participate in protests and demonstrations that call for political leaders to take meaningful action in the domain of climate change.
3. This arises as a way for students to become youth activists for climate change in a safe, but no less productive manner.
4. De Wever played a key role in this movement coming to Belgium, and its further proliferation through major Belgian educational institutions.
5. They’re one of the youngest climate activists to have set sail on the Regina Maris - a low-carbon trans-atlantic voyage to Chile for the UN’s 2019 COP25 summit.
6. Here, Anuna De Wever said, “ We really want to make a statement that we have to stop subsidizing the aviation sector and we have to start investing in these alternatives.”
7. This falls in line with Greta Thunberg’s no-fly movement, as it calls for the further taxation of aviation fuel.
Awards:
- Joint recipient of the May 2019 Ark Prize of the Free Word award with Kyra Gantois, co-founder of the Belgian Youth for Climate Movement
- Joint recipient of Amnesty International Belgium’s Ambassador of Conscience award on behalf of Youth For Climate with Adélaïde Charlier in September 2019.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47070853
https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20190530_04437111
https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/69290/the-voices-of-brussels-global-climate-strike-amnesty-international-anuna-de-wever
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/02/activists-set-sail-across-the-atlantic-to-chile-to-demand-curbs-on-flying