‘What Adults Can Learn From Kids’

Society tells us that kids or young people are selfish and impulsive, that their power and self determination has to be limited for their own protection.  What the kids said years ago are still relevant today and tomorrow. ‘What can adults learn from kids?’ The answer is quite a lot.
This collection of speeches by extraordinary young people is testament to what can be achieved by the next generation. From climate change to disability rights, these are children and young adults proving that, regardless of age, when we dare to care and speak out, grownups in power take note, and can even learn a thing or two.

Joan of Arc: French Heroine Who Fought During The Hundred Years’ War
As a teenage peasant girl living in medieval France, Joan of Arc began to hear voices she believed to be those of angels and of God. The voices instructed her to fight for the French king, Charles VII, during the Hundred Years’ War. Adopting men’s dress, she demanded to meet with military leaders such as the Duke of Lorraine and eventually Charles VII himself. Her persistence and conviction won her their trust. At the time, the French army was also in desperate straits. Perhaps the fact that so many other options had been exhausted and failed made Charles VII more open to the unorthodox choice of allowing a woman and a young, poor one at that to lead his troops.

Joseph Kim: North korean-american human rights activist
Joseph Kim grew up in utter deprivation, living in impoverished conditions during the North Korean famine of the mid-1990s. North Korea’s isolation and secrecy make it impossible to know the precise number of casualties due to starvation, but estimates range from a few hundred thousand to over one million. Joseph’s father was one of those casualties.
When Joseph was just sixteen years old, he made the decision to attempt an illegal – and highly dangerous – escape from the infamously oppressive Hermit Kingdom.

Severn Cullis-Suzuki: Environmental Activist
When she was only twelve years old, Canadian climate change activists Severn Cullis Suzuki delivered a brave message to an audience at the United Nations. In her speech, she said that many of the world’s most privileged countries have failed to do their part in solving the climate crisis and providing assistance to the impoverished.
Now, more than two decades on from her 1992 speech, the recording of her talk still makes the rounds on social media as a viral video entitled ‘The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes’. Her message, which illustrates in bleak terms the consequences of failing to solve climate issues, has struck a chord with modern listeners.

Malala Yousafzai: Nobel Prize Winner And Education Advocate
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for peace and human rights, particularly passionate about equal access to education for women and girls. Although Malala had been an activist for years, writing for a BBC blog as early as 2009, it was in October 2012 that people around the world first learned her name. A Taliban gunman shot her on a school bus in a retaliatory attack over her public writings on education and life in Pakistan’s Swat Valley during instability caused by clashes between the forces of the Taliban and the Pakistani military. Worldwide condemnation of the violent action followed and Malala was transferred to a UK hospital for medical care.

Adenike Titilope Oladosu (born 1994) is a Nigerian climate activist, eco-feminist and the initiator of the Fridays For Future movement in Nigeria. She specialises in equality, security and peace building across Africa, especially in the Lake Chad region.
She was recognised as one of the three young black activists in Africa trying to combat climate chan-ge alongside Vanessa Nakate and Elizabeth Wathuti by Greenpeace UK for the UK Black History Month and in December 2019, Oladosu attended the COP25 gathering in Spain as a Nigerian youth delegate where she gave a “moving address” about climate change in Africa and how it affects lives.
Oladosu began organizing for climate activism after she started university. She saw farmers and herdsmen angry because their land was becoming more arid and other communities who had never faced flooding had their farmlands swept away. She began advocating in communities, schools, and public places to speak to people about the climate crisis. She encouraged them to plant trees and educate their peers.
In 2019, Oladosu was the recipient of the  Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty Interna-tional Nigeria and she spoke to world leaders at the UN youth climate summit. She attended the 2019 Climate change conference in Mad-rid along with Greta Thun-berg where she drew the attention of world leaders towards the Nigerian and African climate movements

Hadiqa Bashir: Activist Against Child Marriage
An activist from Pakistan, has been raising awareness in her community and around the world about the negative effects of child marriage. Hadiqa herself suffered pressure from her grandmother to marry at the age of eleven, only narrowly avoiding this thanks to support from a sympathetic uncle, the rights activist Erfaan Hussein Babak. Her grandmother was furious and the disagreement led to a months-long estrangement between them but it did not dissuade Hadiqa from her next move: campaigning to ensure that no girl would have to go through such a situation ever again.
Nkosilathi Nyathi:
A UNICEF-Climate Youth Ambassador and a proud Zimbabwean and African youth under the Zimbabwe Youth Council.
Welcome to Victoria Falls. It is also home to the magnificent Victoria Falls or in our local Lozi language, Mosi-oa-tunya which means the ‘Smoke that Thunders.’
He grew up in Chinotimba township in poverty, with everybody struggling all around him. He noticed something that affected the poverty of his community, family and friends, just as much as all the economic and social problems and the political issues they face in his country.
According to him, “It was the environment! Our natural world around us, our atmosphere and our biodiversity.
We are experiencing the worst drought, right here in my backyard, in 100 years. I live it. My family lives it. Farmers have had little harvest for years now. When it doesn’t rain we suffer. And now when it does rain, it floods and we suffer.”

Sparsh Shah: Disability Rights Activist:
Sparsh Shah, who also shares his music under the name Purhythm, is an American disability rights advocate, motivational speaker and musician. He derived the name ‘Purhythm’ from combining the words ‘pure’ and ‘rhythm’ because he describes his rap as family-friendly (pure) and also rhythmic. He has more than 300,000 followers on YouTube, and his cover of Eminem’s song, ‘Not Afraid’, has received more than 14 million views, even drawing the attention of Eminem’s record label, Shady records, who tweeted about him after the video went viral on YouTube.

Bana Alabed: Education And Human Rights Advocate, Syrian Refugee
A young survivor of the Syrian Civil War, a conflict that has killed civilians, uprooted families, and caused fear and instability throughout the region. She garnered public attention around the world through a Twitter account she maintained through the 2016 bombing and siege of the city of Aleppo; the horrors of war gained special poignancy when communicated thro-ugh the eyes of a seven year-old girl.
After her school was destroyed and her father was injured in the siege, her family joined other civilians in fleeing the war-torn city; ultimately seeking refuge in Turkey.

Yola Mgogwana:
Born 2008 is a South African climate activist from Cape Town.
Mgogwana’s activism started in 2019, when she was just eleven years old, after she became concerned about pollution, unusual weather patterns, and a looming water crisis in her country. She has been an inspiration for youth in Africa to join her in her fight for climate justice. She has been hailed as South Africa’s answer to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Mgogwana is a student at Yolomela Primary School in Khayelitsha, one of Cape Town’s most impoverished townships. Her environmental educator is Xoli Fuyani, who is both a mentor and a key collaborator in her work, and is also the Environmental Education Coordinator at the Earthchild Project, a non-profit organization Mgogwana is connected with.
Mgogwana has been an active presenter in schools and has repeatedly urged the Government to take urgent action on climate change.
‘A society that cuts itself off from its youth severs its own lifeline; it is condemned to bleed to death.’
—Kofi Annan