"Our Climate, Our Voice, Our Change"

YOUTH RALLY FOR ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Young people from across the Caribbean and Japan engaged in two intense days of dialogue and activities dedicated to combat climate change at the third staging of the Youth Climate Change Conference October bo-zz, 2017 at the Jamaica Conference Centre. The event with a theme conceptualized by the youth, "Our Climate, Our Voice, Our Change - Advancing Partnerships for Global Impact" saw over 600 participants from over 6o high schools and youth organizations from Jamaica, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Japan region propose solutions to combat climate change. The conference opened with a Conference of the Parties with the nine youth delegations presenting country reports and recommending youth-led actions to climate change. The recommendations which have been collated into a youth statement, ranged from research, capacity building, youth activism to policy and legal/regulatory framework needs. Other activities at the conference included community and policy level advocacy trainings led by Emprezz Golding and the Talk Up Yout team, and other facilitators, Leon Samms from PROPEL project and Wayne Myers from the University of the West Indies (UWI). Sixty attendees benefited from the dynamic sessions. The visual and performing arts competitions provided multiple platforms for creative expressions on climate change through video, poster, song, poetry, drama, dance and the highly anticipated Trashic trash to fashion competition. St. Lucia and Japan were the international winners, with the former finishing second and third in the poetry competition and Japan finishing third in the poster competition. Competition entrants, Kenloy Smith, UWI, Mona and Jarda Nelson from Ardenne High School were outstanding receiving multiple awards for literary, performing and visual arts. May Day High School copped the coveted champion school award for top participation across several competitions.