Meet the NAE students reimagining a greener planet for every child

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Illustration by Arisha, 16, a student at the British School of Kuwait

Droughts. Floods. Heat waves. Fires. Rising sea levels.

The news is full of stories featuring the devastating impact of climate change on children. At times, it can feel like the situation is hopeless. While humanity has a massive task ahead - and not much time to do it - children and young people all around the world are taking action.

A group of young people from the Nord Anglia Education group used their digital storytelling skills, from illustration to blogging, to reimagine a greener, cleaner world for every child.

Check out the content from the finalists: Arisha, Tajvir and Japvir. Want to learn more? Visit this website to understand and and tackle climate change.


 

'Wake up humanity!'

Japvir Singh, 14, India

 

I am Japvir Singh, a 14 years old boy. The place where I live is not much affected by climate change, or I might not have noticed it yet. Though less, it still is. No place has not encountered this demon.

Now, as I sit on a chair against a window with my right hand on my forehead and my elbow on the table, staring at the floor, I have visions - visions of my future. I am sitting on the same chair under a dull roof and watching my grandchild draw a scenery with a greyish sky and ask, “was it always like this?”

“No, not always,” I reply to him with a wrinkled and defeated face. “It was blue and clearer. You could see birds flying as they bathed in bright beams of the sun. Far spreading green meadows and rivers like motionless sheets of glass. Trees swayed in the gentle breeze and the sunlight danced through them. The melodious chirping of the sparrow gables in your ears. The horizon was dotted with roofs of red and blue.”

And then, he chuckled and turned away as he continued to paint the future.

Didn’t he believe in this?

I couldn’t make him believe that this world was not rotten from the beginning. I felt a weird pain. A feeling that I never had before. The agony that I never wish to experience.

Every night I go to bed, I have this vision and I do not regret watching the dull and gloomy world amid the encroaching darkness, because this serves as a wake-up call for me, to prevent a future from happening.

Wake up humanity!

Someone has to do it; the world can’t enter that wicked realm! We have to save the judgement day if we want to live!

The first time when I felt the effects of climate change was when I watched a tsunami engulfing a town on a news channel. People rushed here and there but they could not run faster than the devastating tides that were destroying everything that came in their path. The locals were fleeing out as fast as they could but, in their hearts, they knew that they wouldn't make it. After a minute or two, all I saw was water between the ruins of the town.

Though I wasn’t there, it seemed like the end of the world. The word ‘climate change’ was far more than a chapter in my social science book.

'Climate Change'

Tajvir Singh, 14, India

The darkest nightmare of humans and planet earth is climate change. It is a grave threat to the existence of every being on the planet, gradually climate change will bring destruction upon humans and there will be no clue of our existence.

Thunder will unleash its fury, hurricane and tsunami will cause mass destruction on land; humanity will crumble. The disastrous event will change everything and there will be no path for humans to end this terror. This menacing future should not take place. Humanity needs to make a move and diminish this ultimatum.

Climate change was nothing more than a topic in my books for me, until that unbelievable moment. I was going to a destination with my family and during the journey, we passed through a destroyed and dejected location, I could sense the despair and suffering of people in the air. At the moment I found out about what climate change is capable of and it should be stopped.

Climate change is caused by many factors which should be reduced for all beings to live on.

Deforestation is one of the major reasons for climate change. Excessive reduction of trees will probably decrease the odds of humanity’s survival. Interference with nature can lead to extreme negative effects.

Humanity’s increased use of fossil fuels can cause global warming in enormous amounts and the results will be pessimistic.

Climate change should be tackled now, if we don’t act now there will be no loved ones to call family; no place to call home, and no planet to call earth.

 

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