Young Activists on the Frontlines, with Brower Youth Award Winners
Presented in collaboration with Earth Island Institute’s New Leaders Initiative
The Brower Youth Awards are among the most prestigious prizes in the U.S. for young eco-activists. In this session, three recent winners share their exemplary and inspiring work and strategies. With 2022 winners Amara Ifeji, a leader in climate education policy-making in Maine; Ilana Cohen, a leader of the successful Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard campaign and co-founder of Fossil Free Research; and 2021 winner Peter Pham, San Jose-based transit justice and climate activist at the local, regional and state levels. Moderated by: Alexia Leclercq, co-founder, Start:Empowerment.
Crystal Ballroom, Hotel Shattuck Plaza
April 6th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Panelists
Amara Ifeji
Director of Policy
Maine Environmental Education Association
Amara Ifeji, 21, an award-winning (2021 National Geographic Young Explorer and 2022 Brower Youth Award) climate justice activist, Director of Policy at the Maine Environmental Education Association, has had great success in mobilizing youth-led, grassroots movements to advance climate education legislation and ensure equitable access to outdoor learning for ALL youth in Maine.
Ilana Cohen
Lead Organizer
Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard
Ilana Cohen is a lead organizer of the Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard campaign and the international Fossil Free Research movement, which combats the fossil fuel industry’s dangerous influence on academia. She is also a 2022 Brower Youth Award winner and a climate journalist with bylines in outlets including The Nation, The New Republic, Teen Vogue, and Inside Climate News. Ilana is currently a senior and Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Undergraduate Fellow at Harvard University, where she studies the ethics of climate change.
Peter Pham
2021 Brower Youth Award Winner
Peter Pham, an undergraduate student majoring in Public Health, engages in the youth climate movement to pass climate action at the municipal, county, and state levels. He serves on the board of a youth climate nonprofit, an environmental advocacy group and an urban forestry nonprofit, and served as a 2021 redistricting commissioner. Peter won a prestigious Brower Youth Award for his activism in 2021.
Alexia Leclercq
Co-Founder
Start:Empowerment
Alexia Leclercq, a grassroots organizer, scholar and artist, has led dozens of environmental justice campaigns from passing legislation, fighting for clean water, addressing aggregate mining pollution to international advocacy and speaking at the UN on climate negotiations. Co-founder of the Colorado River Conservancy and of Start:Empowerment (a Queer and BIPOC-led nonprofit at the nexus of climate education and environmental justice organizing), her work has been recognized by the Brower Youth Award, Jericho Activism Prize, WWF Conservation prize and more. Currently a graduate student at Harvard, her research there focuses on the use of liberatory pedagogy to advance climate justice and air quality in communities of color.
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