YOUNG children, parents and youth gathered outside Wilson’s Wharf on Friday, 15 March at 11am before marching to the Durban City Hall to hand over a mandate to the Department of Energy and the Department of Mineral Resources. The march formed part of a global #Youth4ClimateAction campaign, also known as Fridays for Future, a movement spearheaded by Greta Thunberg who staged an action outside the Swedish Riksdag (parliament), holding a sign that read ‘Skolstrejk för klimatet’ or ‘School strike for climate’ during August 2018.
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Janet Solomon, who is known for her recent documentary film, Becoming Visible acted as an organiser at the event.
“We are Youth for Climate Action, Durban and we stand in solidarity with the massive Fridays for Future campaign has all over the world at the moment, there are over thousands events globally. We are marching to get government, energy and mineral resources department to understand that the youth are not pro fossil fuels and we are asking for renewable and for climate change not to be a sideline agenda but to be a main focus going forward,” said Solomon.
Melanie Ekman travelled from Ballito to attend the march with her husband, Wesley and two children, Isabella and Blake.
“We want our children to be the change they want to see so that their children will have a world to live in,” she said.
Wesley Ekman said: “We believe in protecting the beauty of this country.”
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Mazwe Ndwandwe from Umlazi said that many people do not take climate change seriously.
“We are here to defend our environment. Most people are not educated about environmental issues. Most of us do not take it seriously, even the US president, Donald Trump once said that climate change is not real. We have a huge task to educate our masses about the reality of the situation,” he said.
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