Giving Compass' Take:

• Many students of color around the U.S. are leading climate strikes in their schools as part of a youth-led global movement. Noting that communities of color are harshly affected by climate change, the students want to be part of the leadership that is addressing this issue. 

• How can donors support the momentum of these young people fighting climate change?

• Read about the intricacies of the Green New Deal. 

Kawika Ke Koa Pegram has lived his entire life in island communities and is all too familiar with what sea level rise looks like firsthand. Pegram, a 17-year-old junior in high school, recently moved back to Hawai‘i—where he was born—from the Philippines. Two years later, Hurricane Walaka hit the state.

Pegram first began environmental organizing just a few weeks ago. After seeing on Twitter that the global climate strike movement was coming to the United States, he tracked down the U.S. Youth Climate Strike website and emailed its leaders. “They got back within an hour. And within a few hours, I was in it,” he says. Pegram is now heading the state of Hawai‘i in staging school strikes and storming the Capitol in Honolulu on Friday.

On the other end of Pegram’s email was 16-year-old Isra Hirsi of Minnesota. She’s co-leading the global climate strike in the U.S. along with 12-year-old Haven Coleman of Colorado and 13-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor of New York.  Seventeen-year-old Feliquan Charlemagne knew Hirsi through activist circles and heard about the strike in a group chat they were both part of.

Initially he didn’t want to organize the strike in his state of Florida. It sounded like more than he could handle given his workload as a student at West Port High School, in Ocala.

But a couple of days went by and he changed his mind. “It’s really important to me, being Black and Caribbean. My communities will be some of those most affected by this,” he explains. “And the people who are most affected should be the ones talking about the issue.”

Read the full article about students of color leading climate protests by Leanna First-Arai at YES! Magazine