A young woman from the climate change-impacted island country of Tuvalu, is attending the first ever UN Youth Climate Summit in New York on Saturday, 21 September.
Lilipeti Suiti Faavae is one of 500 hundred young people from around the world selected to attend the Youth Climate Summit after demonstrating their commitment to addressing the climate crisis and displaying leadership in advancing solutions. Over 7,000 young people between the ages of 18 to 29 applied to attend the Summit.
This historic event will be a platform for young leaders who are driving climate action to showcase their solutions at the United Nations, and to meaningfully engage with decision-makers on the defining issue of our time. It will be the largest gathering of young climate leaders at the UN in history.
The Youth Climate Summit will feature a full-day of programming that brings together young activists, innovators, entrepreneurs, and change-makers who are committed to combating climate change at the pace and scale needed to meet the challenge. It will be action oriented, intergenerational, and inclusive, with equal representation of young leaders from all walks of life.
“Youth are showing us the way on climate action,” said Special Envoy for the 2019 Climate Action Summit, Luis Alfonso de Alba. “I am eager for young climate leaders from all over the world to take their rightful place on the global stage and participate in this historic moment.”
Lilipeti Suiti Faavae is a 17 year old Foundation Arts Student at the University of the South Pacific Tuvalu Campus. Born in New Zealand, but grew up mostly in her Pacific Island home country of Tuvalu, Lilipeti wishes not to be forced out of Tuvalu or displaced because of the adverse impacts of Climate Change in Tuvalu and the challenges they bring to the overall wellbeing of her generation.
Lilipeti actively participated in the Film Making and Story Telling on Climate Change project which was facilitated by the Youth Department in Tuvalu’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and a technical filming team including a Professor and Climate Change research students from the Loyola University of Chicago in June this year (2019). The aim of this project was to convey the message to the world through film evidence on the effects of Climate Change in Tuvalu.
Despite being the youngest in the Tuvalu youth participants in the project, Lilipeti performed the lead roles of introducing the main filming sites which were affected by Climate Change and Sea Level Rise in Tuvalu, as well as one of the translators between the Loyola University filming team and some of the Tuvaluan locals who were interviewed.
Lilipeti is extremely excited to participate in the First UN Youth Climate Summit this year, as she is determined to be part of the global action to address the Climate crisis.
“Climate Change in Tuvalu is real and it is a challenge of our time which requires a global solution. I strongly trust that World Leaders of today are sensible, ethical and responsible enough to sympathise with the pleas of all Youth Climate participants from around the world, for urgent action to make a difference for my generation and future generations”, said Lilipeti Suiti Faavae, selected participant for the UN Youth Climate Change Summit, 2019.
source: PACNEWS
