Athena leads Vision Generation Team @ Engadine High School
Athena Blanksby, Year 10, is an enthusiastic advocate for the rights of young people around the world. She has been actively involved in World Vision after the Global leadership Convention that she attended in June this year. Following her attendance, Athena became the group leader for the 40 hour famine at Engadine High School. This required her to inspire other students to join her in an attempt to raise awareness of the global food crisis and raise funds in poverty. So successful was she in her quests that she was joined by 100 other students and their target is to raise $8000.
Engadine High School has joined Vision Generation¸ which is the youth arm of World Vision and is made up of “a group of passionate young people, who campaign relentlessly and speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves, because we believe our generation can truly make poverty history.”
Athena will lead this group. Following is an extract that Athena used to inform students about an event that is being promoted by Vision Generation to encourage young people to speak out about issues pertinent to their world such as climate change and poverty.
“As a young Australian what type of world do you want to inherit?Youth Decide '09 is a national youth vote on climate change. We're giving Australia's 4.8 million young people the chance to vote on what kind of world we want to inherit. Australia's young people can be a voice for their generation: both here in Australia and for those poor countries and communities around the world who will be most affected by climate change.
A united youth voice will help compel the Australian government to lead the way in securing a strong global agreement.The more greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere, the worse climate change will get. Globally we need to set a limit on how much greenhouse gas emissions we are going to put into the atmosphere. This limit will be decided when countries around the world come together this December at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Countries will set targets for how much they will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020. Australia will have to decide our target as well.The targets that are chosen will determine the kind of world we will inherit.
Make a difference and vote before the 21st September at:
