Transform Our World Youth Summit Ambassador Silvia shares what she enjoyed about day 1 of the Summit.

Action day of the youth summit was filled with sessions that highlighted and explained how you can act as an individual and I found the events very empowering and came away feeling motivated to act and make a change.

The first youth summit session I watched was the Forest of Promises with WWF UK. The session taught me that individual actions come paired with global actions that need to be taken by world leaders. The session gave me great ideas of what I could do with my school to raise awareness and save our planet. For example: I am planning to email my form tutor to suggest that we spend some time during the school day discussing these topics and produce ways we can make a change.

Next, I watched Anxiety to Action with Clover Hogan. This session explained that the feelings of anxiety and stress related to the climate and biodiversity crisis are healthy and rather than trying to push them away, you should try to channel them into a motivation for positive action. It is extremely important for those feelings of stress and anger not to be associated with a bad and unhealthy mindset but to be rewritten as something healthy and natural and as feelings and emotions that show you care about the future of this planet.

After that, I watched the Calls for Action session which was created and presented by other youth ambassadors. I was shocked by the awful facts presented during the event and the session left me feeling even more motivated to campaign for change. I had no idea of the true effects of fast fashion and air pollution and felt outraged at the fact few people are educated about the effects and causes of these problems. If everyone were taught and educated, we would have the best means possible for solving the climate crisis.