Anna Kernahan

Anna Kernahan
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Born	(2002-07-25) July 25, 2002
Occupation	Ecological Climate Social Justice Human Rights Activists

Anna Kernahan is a climate, ecological, social justice and human rights activist, founder of Fridays for Future Northern Ireland, writer, student and youth advocate from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They protest every Friday to acknowledge climate changes and why to take it seriously, as part of Fridays For Future, a global climate strike movement.

Early Life

Anna was born on 25th of July 2002. At a young age, Anna had already a passion for nature being interested in ecology and wildlife and loving being in nature, going on walks through the hills and reading nature encyclopedias. On 2019, near the age of 17, after reading about Greta Thunberg, Fridays For Future and reports concerning the environment such as the 2018 IPCC special report, Anna became concerned with the climate emergency believing that the educational system is not teaching with enough significance about the climate crisis. So, they started raising awareness about the pollution impact, making scientific data on this topic known and protesting, fighting and demanding actions by the politicians to act on the climate crisis.

Activism

Initially, Anna's school didn’t support the idea of school striking, but Anna did it anyway and her school let them do it with a few restrictions. Firstly, in May of 2019, Anna joined the Northern Ireland Students’ Climate Network, the Youth Strike 4 Climate branch of Northern Ireland, striking monthly. Then, on September 2019, Anna created Fridays For Future Northern Ireland, the national Northern Irish section of Friday For Future, an association that protests and raises awareness about climate change every Friday around the world. Thus, Anna has been school striking every Friday on the sculpture Spirit of Belfast for almost 4 years without any exception, protesting frequently alone. Moreover, during the Covid-19 pandemic, they continued protesting with physical and digital actions. Anna has stated in an interview that they hate striking and would prefer going to school, but they have no option as they felt it is their moral duty. Besides remonstrating for the environment, Anna writes poems, their thoughts on the environmental problems and their experiences as an activist and often makes art to concern people about the pollution and other climate problems, specially directed to politicians and governments with power to change the system.

Solo But Not Alone

In December of 2019, Anna Kernahan and two friends, Grace Maddrell and Helen Jackson, created a Twitter page, which in weeks got hundreds of followers, with the purpose of sharing stories of solo climate strikes.

Campaign #LearnMoreOutdoors

On 3rd of March 2020, Ulster Wildlife and its Our Bright Future Youth Advocate launched a campaign called #LearnMoreOutdoors to celebrate World Wildlife Day. Anna participated in this movement by helping in its series of videos about the advantages of outdoor schooling and giving their opinion about the subject.

TED-Talk

On 14th of March 2020, Anna had a TED-Talk where they and another young climate activist, Kaitlyn Laverty, called the viewers to act and take the environmental problems seriously.

Amnesty Brave Award 2020

In 2020, Anna won the Amnesty Brave Award 2020 as, at the time, they had been striking for more than half a year in Ireland, a country with very strict protesting laws.

Northern Ireland Science Festival

In 2021, between 15th to 28th of February, in the Northern Ireland Science Festival, Anna joined a conversation with Jane Goodall and Dr Tarashine, hosted by Lizzie Dalyabout. In the conversation, they talked about how to face the issues of the world and to save it from dying.

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