My Role in the Madison Youth Climate Strike

Rachel Hughes, Yearbook Staff

The Youth Climate Strike was an international school walkout to protest the inaction towards climate change. The movement started in Sweden when Greta Thunberg started striking school every Friday to raise awareness of environmental issues. It gained traction throughout the world and eventually 30 countries participated and hundreds of strikes were planned across the U.S. on March 15.  I did a variety of different tasks leading up to the Madison, Wisconsin strike. A big project I did was making the promotional video and getting the word out about the strike. I interviewed people that were helping with the strike and put together a video that I was pretty proud of. Along with the video, East leads sold buttons, put up fliers, and went around to classrooms telling them about what the strike was all about. The Madison strike was a huge success with over 700 kids participating. I will be forever grateful for this leadership opportunity and amazed by the power of student voices.