Sofia Pasotto : “Climate change does not have to be a boring issue.”

At 23, Sofia Pasotto from Italy is one of the young persons whose major challenge is not being taken seriously by the society she finds herself in. She is a young climate activist working with Fridays for Future, a climate justice non-profit organization Climate change. Sofia explains that older people take young persons as unserious and do not take into consideration their recommendations or consider their activities as something worth implementing.

According to Sophia Pasotto, it is more difficult being a young woman in the climate justice fight in her country but she is resolved to take climate action now. “It is challenging also to be a young woman in Italy. People do not take you too seriously. Just because we are young, they think that we are incompetent, that we do not know what we are talking about or that we do not know anything about adulthood but what we know, is that there is not going to be a nice adult world for us if we do not engage in climate action right now.”

In a society that looks at young people as unserious, Sofia and her peers have decided to adopt a softer approach in engaging other young people into their campaign. “So we try to be as simple as possible and as engaging as possible. Climate change does not have to be a boring issue. It is also something that can be very challenging to your person. So my mantra is when you know the roots of a problem, then you must definitely want to be part of the solution” She says.

Sofia Pasotta is in Africa for the first time and looking forward to join the panelist at the “Getting Involved” edition of the Our Future Africa-Europe Dialogues forum on Thursday December 1, 2022 in Yaounde, to share her perspectives in taking climate action in the community.

Sofia clearly understands the differences in cultures and perspectives in the African and European contexts and says she is ready to be part of a dialogue process that truly respects continental realities. “I am so excited and think it will be interesting to see how the dialogue works. I do not want to be someone who imposes her vision on someone that lives a different experience. My European experience is way different from the African experience and I want to take into consideration the African experiences when I talk about climate and social justice.” She said.

Sofia encourages the over 200 participants at the conference to collaborate for a better future.

Interview by Sah Terence Animbom with Médiaé & Démocratie (M&D)

This article was produced in collaboration with Media & Democracy (M&D), as part of the Yaoundé Regional Forum « Our Future »
A lire aussi :  Forum « S’engager ! - Dialogues Afrique-Europe » : parole à la jeunesse !

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