Dave Eggers: why we should listen to teenagers speak about climate crisis

Teenagers speak with a directness and a moral clarity that is desperately rare in our elected leaders, and perhaps in the adult species as a whole. That’s why we created the International Congress of Youth Voices. It’s an annual gathering of young writers and activists, ages 16 to 22, who speak and live with urgency.

 Internsational Congress of Youth Voices, David Eggers interacting with students.

The first conference was last summer in San Francisco, where almost a hundred delegates from twenty-six countries gathered, and were mentored by the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Khaled Hosseini, and congressman John Lewis. One of our most inspiring young delegates in that first conference was 15-year-old Salvador Góomez-Colón from Puerto Rico, who created his own non-profit to help the island’s recovery after Hurricane Maria.

Eight months ago, we decided that we’d hold the second Congress in San Juan. We knew Puerto Rico would be a rich and inspiring location for the delegates to explore issues of colonialism and climate change, for starters, but we had no idea it would be, in August of 2019, the most exciting place on the planet to watch grassroots democratic change in action.

Read the story from The Guardian by Dave Eggers - “Dave Eggers: why we should listen to teenagers speak about climate crisis.”