Climate change drives young activist
New Zealand’s youngest district councillor and climate activist Sophie Handford has a message of hope - there are things we can all do to try to change the future.
She was in Taupo¯ recently to meet with Kids Greening Taupo¯ student leaders and with college-age students trying to effect environmental change and she knows only too well what it feels like to have a sense of hopelessness about the future.
Sophie, 19, was last year elected to the Kapiti District Council and said at the time that political inaction over climate change had compelled her to stand.
She is perhaps best known as one of the organisers of School Strike for Climate Change and the Vote Climate 2020 campaign which was run to increase the dialogue around climate change as an election issue.
In her role on the Kapiti District Council Sophie holds the climate and youth portfolios and says a lot of the work she does is connecting with different action groups in the community and making sure their voice is being heard.
“What I’ve become acutely aware of is that everything we’re talking about in a council setting directly impacts the future for us.”
Sophie was invited to Taupo¯ by Kids Greening Taupo¯ and had a busy schedule. She ran a teacher professional development workshop (“that was an interesting experience because it’s the first one I’ve ever run”) and later that day held a workshop with Kids Greening Taupo¯’s student leaders.
The following day she held a session with students from Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori o Whakarewa i te reo
ki Tu¯wharetoa, Tauhara College, some home schooled students and some from Hilltop School.
She says the goal of the workshop was to let the students know there were things they could do that made a difference to the future.
“The purpose is that so they don’t feel this overwhelming fear when they know what climate change is, but actually feel empowered and know what to do. I want them to get a basic understanding of why climate change is happening and its impacts … but also feel like they can communicate that to others and be part of the solutions and bringing
people together to make a difference.”
Sophie says while climate change is a global issue that affects every single person, this generation now has a real opportunity to be the ones that save the world.
“It’s important that we empower each other to play our roles in that and to do what we can in whatever space we are in within our kura, schools and families and communities to share that, and I see these last few days as being what I can do to help in that sense.”
Sophie says the task at hand seems so overwhelming that it’s normal for people to feel hopeless and that
there’s nothing they can do. In her discussions with the Taupo¯ students she asked them how information about climate change made them feel. The answers included sad, angry and scared.
She says it can be reassuring to know that other people all feel like that at some point to and the main thing is to normalise the feeling, talk about it, share what is being done and make conscious decisions to make things better.
“For example: rethinking about ‘what shall I do with this piece of rubbish in my hand? Can I reuse it, can someone else use it? Going to the supermarket and thinking: do I really need to buy this?”
Sophie says while she knows a lot about environmental activism and initiatives in Kapiti, it’s been heartening to come to Taupo¯ and see there are other passionate young people working hard around New Zealand, and running workshops has presented a new opportunity.
“I’ve really enjoyed this because you can see people can feed into it and get stuff out of it and ask questions, so I’ve learned a lot too about how I can best communicate this to others, especially young students and what that looks like and the best way to make sure that they don’t leave that discussion feeling like they can’t do anything.
Sian Moffitt of Kids Greening Taupo¯ said the students’ workshop with Sophie had been a good opportunity to get students together to network, to feel empowered to make change and the things that had come out of it had been inspiring, with some amazing ideas being put forward.
She said one student had wondered what difference they alone could make and compared themselves to a grain of sand.
“But when grains come together they form a beach and that can make change. Everyone that comes together we can make a movement, we have a voice and it’s empowering students to be able to use that and have the knowledge.”
Feedback from Sophie’s student workshop included: “Realising I am capable of protecting and fighting for the environment.” “I feel more protective of my whenua and I got to meet new people with all different thoughts and ideas.” “It helped me fully understand what climate change is.” “I loved it.”