FeaFtuoroed
Queens teens travel to
Poland to add youth voices
climate change discussion
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I DECEMBER 2018 37
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Three Queens high schoolers took part in the
United Nations Framework event on Climate
Change (COP24) in Katowice, Poland.
Josiah Dunn, 15, a sophomore at John
Adams High School in Ozone Park, Luis Guaman, 16,
a senior at William Bryant Cullen High School in Long
Island City and Saheedah Majolagbe, 15, a Jamaica
resident and sophomore at Brooklyn’s High School
for Medical Professionals, were among the four New
York City high schoolers selected to go abroad.
The trip was sponsored and organized by Global
Kids, a nonprofit organization that works to develop
youth leadership skills and civic engagement among
teenagers. The trio started their 9-day-long trip in
Poland on Dec. 4 and returned on Dec. 12.
The four students selected to go abroad were part
of Global Kids’ Human Rights Activist Project (HRAP)
which led a successful campaign to make climate
education mandatory in New York City public schools.
“As a child, I never expected myself to go to the
other side of America, much less across the Atlantic
to express ideas with the world leaders and inform
many other individuals about climate change from a
GK youth leader perspective,” said Dunn. “I hope that
I will be able to learn how the political system works
when it is concerned with a global issue as well as
learn about the new technologies that people are
developing to combat climate change.”
During their time at the COP24 summit, the high
schoolers participated in various workshops and exhibi-tions
in collaboration with Peace Boat, a global NGO
that works to build relationships between groups that
work for peace, human rights, environmental protec-tion
and sustainable development. All of the students
presented a project and spoke with world leaders
on the importance of youth voices when it comes to
climate change talks.
“Our youth understand the urgent need to hold world
leaders as well as our own government accountable to
protect their futures,” said Evie Hantzopoulos, executive
director of Global Kids. “Their voices and opinions are
key to finding equitable and just solutions to address
climate change.”
The teens also hosted climate change workshops at
two Polish high schools — IV Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace
im. S. Maczka and Liceum High — on Dec. 7 and 10.
Photo courtesy of Global Kids
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