On the 27th of November, the students of the Overseas School of Colombo carried a climate strike. The idea started with a simple email sent by Alexandra, Talia, and Disara to a group of student leaders. We decided to have multiple meetings the next following days in the design room in order to plan for the strike. The process was very time consuming and multiple meetings were needed as we debated on how we wanted to strike and what we wanted to include. We eventually decided that we were going to educate and inform the school community of the vital issue of climate change through a video of Greta Thunberg, a group activity, and explain a pledge created for OSC regarding ways to be more sustainable.
In the beginning, we wanted to do the strike on the streets and directly get the attention of the Sri Lankan government however due to issues with safety in was decided to be held in school. Before the day of the event Luca, Rashmi, Disara, Josh Jackson, Emily, Talia, Alex and I made banners and posters. These would then be used in the morning of the strike. We went around the school chanting and raising our banners, missing homeroom in the process. Many students and a teacher joined the march around the school to spread awareness of the strike at 12:00pm and for climate change in general. Even before the day of the strike, a digital poster was made by Alexandra which was spread throughout social media. The plan was to get as many people aware of the strike in order for people to be prepared and show up.
At 12:00pm, during third block students started to leave class and made their way to the auditorium. The service leaders had the responsibility to check each grade if more people wanted to come. While entering the auditorium pieces of paper were handed out for the group activity. Luca and Disara introduced the strike with a speech following the video of Greta Thunberg. Once the video finished, Josh Jackson’s group activity started. He wanted everyone to write what they wanted the Sri Lankan government to improve environmentally. Once completed, the pieces of paper were collected and the plan is to use them to formulate a letter to the Sri Lankan government. The pledge was then explained by Rashmi and I. We went through each point roughly however, a soft copy was also sent out to the students if they wanted to read in more detail and sign it. The pledge consisted of rules that the school community could implement in order to fight climate change and be more sustainable.
Overall, I thought that the climate strike was really successful. We were able to state our opinions and thoughts on something we found important for our future. Many people both students and teachers came to support and listened to what we had to say. I hope that the school community will implement the rules set by the pledge and continue being aware of the environment. During the process, I learned that anything is achievable with teamwork and a bit of planning especially if everyone is fighting for something together.
