Two Filipinas win at Youth4Climate Challenge in Italy!

Congratulations and mabuhay to Lara Jean Salaysay and Pau Asuncion for winning at the recently concluded Youth4Climate Challenge in Italy!

Both Filipinas won a monetary grant of $20,000 each for their climate action projects at the Youth4Climate: Sparking Solutions event, held in Rome, Italy last October 17-19.

The event is a collaboration between the Italian government the United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank Group's Connect4Climate initiative.

Salaysay won for her "Green Economy Ready" project, which aims to introduce green jobs into career counseling programs for senior high school students in the Philippines.

Asuncion meanwhile won for her "Bagsakan Kabataan" project, which aims to mobilize rural and urban youth to upscale and promote agroecology and climate action in the Philippines through youth-led organic farmers markets.

Salaysay's and Asuncion's projects were the only two projects from the Philippines entered to the months-long Youth4Climate: Sparking Solutions event, which began in March with calls for innovative ideas from young people all over the world to focus their skills and creativity in taking climate action.

It focuses on four areas — Urban Sustainability, Food and Agriculture, Education, and Sustainable Recovery — and features a selection process of three rounds. 

In the first round, Youth4Climate: Sparking Solutions received more than 1,000 submissions from around the world. Only 100 applications were selected, which then required shortlisted candidates to pitch their project at the Youth4Climate event in Italy.

Only 4% of the total number of submissions were funded.

Speaking to GMA News Online over email, Salaysay said "the competition was tight because there were 25 entries per category."

"I prepared a lot for the pitching where I took advantage of the 1:1 coaching provided by the organizers. They judges didn't ask any questions comported to previous speakers. My peers said it was a good sign since my pitch was clear and straightforward," she continued. 

Before studying for a Master of Environment and Sustainability specializing in Leadership for Sustainable Development at Australia's Monash University, the 28-year-old Filipina held "meaningful youth engagement projects for climate action and democracy" where she met young people eager to be part of the solution but soon find themselves torn between green jobs and better-paying jobs. 

"However, as I am working in a climate job, I believe they don't have to choose between a job that can satisfy their needs and a job that contributes to sustainable development," Salaysay said.

"I am a firm believer that any job can be a green job," she continued, explaining working in and with the fossil fuel industry is the exemption.

Salaysay's interest in climate change and climate action started to take form in 2015, when, as a coastal clean-up volunteer, she witnessed "an island of waste drifted by the currents to a small island in Navotas City."

A series of typhoons, especially 2018's Typhoon Ompong, turned her interest into something of a calling. "Looking back, I realized flooding should not be normal. When I was in studying, tuwing umuulan kinakailangan lumusong sa baha para makaabot sa school. Dahil nakagisnan ko na iyon, akala ko normal lang. Hindi pala dapat normal iyon. Because of climate change and poor adaptive practices, our flooding experience worsened," Salaysay said.

"I started to learn about climate change and climate action. I was a teacher back then so I integrated these concepts into classroom instruction and conversed with administration on how to make our practices more eco-friendly."

She then took on work at the Department of Education as the Climate Change focal person. "Since then, I worked on my personal and institutional climate action and helped thousands of teachers and learners along the way."

Asuncion meanwhile is the National Vice Chairperson of the National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates - Youth. She is an advocate for rural women, farmers, fisherfolk and a climate justice activist.

Salaysay's and Asuncion's projects were the only only from the Philippines but there were two other Filipino delegates at Youth4Climate in Italy. Louise Mabulo,  co-founder of Cacao Project, served as moderator of the Food and Agriculture area, while Preinces Manuel, a civil engineering student at Far Eastern University Institute of Technology, won the Youth4Climate video challenge on Goodwall. 

The Youth4Climate Initiative was born out of the Youth4Climate Summit that the Government of Italy hosted in Milan back in 2021 as an event ahead of COP 26 that allowed young people from more than 180 countries to put "forward ideas and concrete proposals on some of the most pressing issues on the climate agenda."

It is an especially empowering event that quells the very real climate anxiety that plenty of young people around the world are contending with, given the climate crisis.

Says Salaysay, feeling anxious about climate is valid. But "after a couple of self-care activities to regain our focus, let's use these intense emotions to drive climate action, not just in our lifestyle, but to call for systemic change for the government and businesses." 
 — GMA Integrated News