Last Friday 6 March Enviroschools hosted the first Ideas to Inspire Talk of 2020.

Speakers, ex Logan Park High School students, Zac Rudin and Finn Mackinlay, came to talk with the students keen to hear about their involvement in the founding of the School Strike for Climate in Dunedin. They told us of their journey in creating and organising the strikes, involving forming their initial group, talking to other organisations that could add to their movement and their process of coordinating with different schools. They answered questions about what it was like trying to work with people outside of their movement and how you would go about that, and shared information on who to contact if you wanted to participate in any environmental events being organised in Dunedin - outside of Enviroschools and School Strikes. They also talked about how they refused to give up hope for their goals in the face of criticism and resistance from some of the older generations (particularly those of which who were quite outspoken on the Dunedin News Facebook page.)

Not only was this talk a source of inspiration for the girls who attended but it also helped to build a foundation for the execution of the overall OGHS Enviroschools goal for the year, to act as political activists for the environment both on a local and national level. Zac and Finn provided us with an idea of how to approach outer organisations, about how shared leadership is the ideal approach to ensure the success of our goals, and they presented us with a place to start our involvement in the wider environmental community. Overall the talk was a very valuable experience that I’m sure the girls were very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend and we look forward to the talks we have lined up in the future that will allow us to continue to develop our approach to achieving our goals. I hope to see more girls take the opportunity to learn from others’ experiences with whomever our next speaker will be.