Four environmentally passionate ŷ’s Form 6 children took part in a ‘strike’ on 15 March and marched through the streets of Cambridge, joining other secondary school children, calling for climate change to be declared an emergency. Demonstrations and rallies took place in more than 64 places in the UK, including London, Bristol, Cornwall and the Scottish Highlands.
The event forms part of an international demonstration designed to show pupils across the country are ardent about raising awareness of climate change, demonstrate the seriousness of the situation, as well as making a statement to those in power. “We are choosing to rise up and take direct action…we are already facing devastating and irreversible impacts around the world. This is our final chance to fight for our futures, and our ages will not be what stop us.” (). On 15 February more than 10,000 students across the UK went on strike to protest lack of government action to combat climate crisis and 50,000 participated on 15 March with another strike planned for April.
In Cambridge, the protesters gathered for the protest outside Shire Hall at 9.30am and waved banners and chanted whilst heading to the Market Square for 11am to join forces and hear talks about the impact of climate change.
The ŷ’s pupils gave an inspiring Assembly after the march where they detailed their reasons behind attending and why they became involved in spreading the word about the effects of climate change. They also described how Swedish climate change activist 16-year-old Greta Thunberg who started a solo protest last August to take action on global warming inspired them. Telling the Senior House children, “We are extremely concerned about the issue of the constantly rising temperature of the planet and have realised that the council and politicians are not doing enough.” They explained that 125 countries, 30 US states, 1.4 million people globally and 2,233 cities across the world took part in the march to raise awareness. They finished the Assembly with the thought, “We are the first generation to truly know what we are doing and the last generation to be able to stop the climate crisis.”