Young Friends protest for climate justice

Young Friends took part in the global climate strikes this week

Young Friends took to the streets this week to take part in the global climate strikes. With some students walking out of school, youth activists joined demonstrations across the UK on 20 and 27 September in a week of action calling on political leaders to take urgent action to avert climate breakdown. The protests, held in around 4,000 locations across the world, are part of the Fridays For Future strikes led by school children, which this week invited adults.

Eighteen-year-old Cerys Hutchinson, from Chelmsford Meeting, was at the London march, which started with speeches, music and performances. She said that people were nervous to go as ‘my school doesn’t authorise absence for the strikes and they’ve been quite strict. They don’t see the passion. But when you go, you see the passion. You see the effort people have made with signs. Some people wear masks to cover their faces, so they can’t be identified. People were handed out advice cards at Westminster station to make them aware of their rights and how to respond to the police. It really is frightening, thinking about my future – there is a constant undercurrent [of fear] over what is going to happen in ten or twenty years.’

Seventeen-year-old Anya Nanning Ramamurthy, from Tottenham Meeting, told the Friend that at the London gathering ‘we got everyone to set off alarms to remind the government that time is ticking. I also went to an interfaith event at Westminster Meeting House organised by the UK Student Climate Network, which allowed people to have silence and share prayers. Around sixty people turned up.’

Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) upheld the young activists by providing a room at Friends House and allowing staff to join the witness. A BYM statement thanked the strikers for their leadership. ‘Together, we must hold those in power to account and build a truly sustainable and just economy… To confront our climate crisis we must question business as usual.’

Elsewhere, Friends supported the activists. Quakers in Edinburgh held a Meeting for Worship on 21 September, before joining the main march at St Giles. Meanwhile, in Shetland, Friends joined a rally at Market Cross in Lerwick. St Andrews Quaker Joyce Taylor joined campaigners in Edinburgh on 19 September to hand in a petition to the Scottish parliament ahead of the stage three debate on Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill on 25 September. It stated that, while Scotland’s climate emergency declaration is a positive step, politicians must use the Bill to commit action into law. Joyce Taylor said: ‘Quakers in Scotland believe that the Climate Change Bill offers an opportunity for Scotland to be a leader by adopting the more ambitious target of eighty per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.’

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