Young activists are sounding the loudest alarms on the impact that climate change is having on local communities worldwide: They want action, and they want it now. In Bolivia, Young Climate Advocate Paola Flores Carvajal organizes workshops to educate Indigenous women who are living through the impact of climate change every day.

Like many other young activists, 23-year-old Bolivian Paola Flores Carvajal has had enough of vague commitments by leaders and is impatient to see tangible progress in combating climate change.

But she’s not waiting around until that progress happens on its own.

“I prefer acting rather than talking,” Paola says.

In 2019, she and a group of university friends — Areli Diaz Cabrera, Fernanda Paucara Vásquez, and Claudia Pereira Cuba — started Magnífica Warmi (“Magnificent Women” in Spanish and Quechua, an Indigenous Bolivian language) to educate rural Indigenous women about climate change. All of them were engineering students without any background in environmental studies or policy, but they all felt a deep urge to work on a project related to climate action. They also knew that they wanted their project to be centered on women, a demographic that is usually neglected in decision-making but is the central pillar of families and is raising the next generation.

“When you see Indigenous women around the world, they are strong, they are incredible,” says Paola. “They are not afraid to say what they need to say, but they don’t have access to education.”

Read the full article about youth activism for female climate change by Sarah Alaoui at United Nations Foundation.