30 November 2018

In the short time leading up to my final year of high school, I came across an article about kids from Castlemaine protesting our government’s inactivity on climate change and felt immediately called to join in.

I’d been politically minded for many years, but had always felt powerless to do more. I couldn’t vote, after all, and nobody beyond my family cared for my political opinions. For many years, I’d watched decision-makers instrumentalise my education and felt angry that I was never given a space to speak up about it, including when it comes to our curriculum’s focus on climate change.

The strike would take place on the final day of my school year. As such, I also urged my classmates, all of whom didn’t even know me, to join as well. Whilst none of them responded to me, many did in fact leave as well.

I took my camera to document the protest and then used the footage to create this montage, soundtracked by a quick series of ostinatoes I made once I’d spliced everything else together. I uploaded the video to my stepfather’s YouTube a week later, after we as a family had attended a follow-up protest and march.

For many years, my proudest moment from that time of my activist beginnings wasn’t this video, but my attendance at an event on the Friday prior. My local EcoCentre hosted a panel between strikers and former Greens head Adam Bandt, as well as then-local candidate Steph Hodgins-May. At the end of the day, Steph asked to get a quote from us why we were attending, and I’m quite smug to say my response ‘intimidated’ her.

These days, however, my proudest recollection of this video is the fact that I was documented, whilst filming, in Jack River’s music video for ‘We Are The Youth’.

Open Editorial: We Won’t Stop Striking Until Our Climate Is Protected

Following the November 2018 strike, I became an organiser in the movement. I helped organise the 15 March 2019 strike and penned the following open editorial for WhyNot? in line with my duties as a media spokesperson, which was released on 30 April 2019 in anticipation of the upcoming federal election.

For more on what I’ve done with WhyNot?, see here.

30 September 2019

By September 2019, I was an organiser and media spokesperson for the Naarm contingent of the Australian School Strikes 4 Climate movement. I’d also become a volunteer for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition during the 2019 federal election.

The September strike was the third large strike I’d helped organise by that point, after the large strike on 15 March and the pre-election rally at party offices on 3 May. In my capacity, I only responded to media requests twice; most of my communications were promotional emails.

My duties on 20 September were just the same as they’d been the previous November, excepting that I was acting in a more official role for the movement. This video isn’t one generally in use by the overall organisation, though they may have used my raw footage from time to time.

This montage was once again posted to my stepfather’s YouTube channel and soundtracked by me.

Climate Fridays Season 2 Recap

During the lockdowns from COVID-19, School Strike 4 Climate partnered with Green Music Australia for Climate Fridays, weekly livestreamed panels between musicians and activists, hosted by Triple J presenter Nkechi Anele.

The purpose of this initiative was to keep people going, even during those difficult times where taking to the streets was obviously no longer an option. There was a lot of climate grief, especially surrounding the Black Summer bushfires, but there were still campaigns happening, still people on the ground working for change. Panellists included not just school strikers and local musicians, but also First Nations activists and campaigners on the ground from several different organisations.

After the end of season 2, a call was made in the movement for an editor to create another short promotional video, similar to what they had done at the end of season 1. I volunteered for the role.

Through Slack, I was put in touch with Green Music Australia CEO Berish Bilander, who sent me recordings of all the livestreams and a copy of the song Heal You In Time by Gretta Ray to soundtrack the clip. After watching the footage, I cut out the extracts I thought best fit together to tell a cohesive story and communicated back-and-forth with Berish until we finally had a video all of us liked.