Activist Greta Thunberg ignites climate action among European students

(Reuters News, 8 May 2019) Teenagers from across Europe gather at Milan food conference to call on adults to solve problems of climate change and hunger.

Noticing bald and badly grown patches of grass near his home, 13-year-old Nikita Shulga co-founded a project in Ukraine that turned food scraps from his school canteen into organic fertiliser to create healthy soils.

British student Ayrton Cable was only eight when he learnt about homelessness, putting him on a path to activism and establishing the Water, Air, and Food Awards (WAFA) for youths.

Giorgia Mira, 16, was mocked when, inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, she started climate protests outside her school in southern Italy, but believes she is slowly changing the minds of both her peers and teachers.

They are all part of the nearly four dozen teenagers who called on adults to solve the problems of climate change and hunger without further delay at a four-day food industry conference this week in the Italian city of Milan.

"We should solve these problems, not close our eyes ... because if you don't do it, then nothing changes," Sophia-Christina Borisyuk, 13, Shulga's former classmate who co-founded the composting project, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"If we don't do anything, after 200, 300 or even 100 years, we all die because we use a lot of minerals and other resources but we don't replenish," added Shulga, whose project has spread to 200 schools all over Ukraine.

Their goal is to get all of Ukraine's 17,000 schools to produce their own compost.

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Reuters News, 8 May 2019: Activist Greta Thunberg ignites climate action among European students