In the early 1990’s, 12-year-old Severn Suzuki was passionately obsessed with real world issues like poverty, ocean pollution, and global warming. She was just a child, but she also understood that the decisions adults made concerning these issues would impact her life and the lives of all children for generations to come. And she believed she and other children should have a voice and be present during critical global meetings on these issues.
Severn boldly set her sights on attending the next United Nations (UN) Conference. At the time, in over 50 years, no child had ever attended a UN Conference—a formal meeting where ambassadors from nearly every developed country come together to openly discuss the future health of the world. But Severn believed it was time to change this—it was time for children to have a voice too. So not only was she determined to figure out how to attend, but she resolved to make sure her voice was heard loud and clear too.
Severn applied to attend the UN Conference through the environmental non-profit she and her friends founded when they were all just 9-years-old. And when her application was accepted—not because of her age, but because she had helped build a relevant non-profit—she knew it was just the beginning.
When Severn arrived at the UN Conference she hit the ground running with one goal in mind: [Read more…]