Table Of ContentFirst published in 2020 by White Lion Publishing,
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Text © 2020 Adora Svitak
Illustrations © 2020 Camila Pinheiro
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ISBN 978 1 78131 950 5
Ebook ISBN 978 1 78131 951 2
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Design by Isabel Eeles
Cover by Josse Pickard
Printed in Slovenia
A d ora Svitak
• •
SPEECHES BY
YOUNG PEOPLE
TO EMPOWER
& INSPIRE
• Illustrated by Camila Pin h eiro •
Contents
6 Introduction
10 Joan of Arc 48 Patrick Kane
French heroine Disability rights advocate
12 Mario Savio 50 Emer Hickey and Ciara Judge
Student activist Scientists
16 Severn Cullis-Suzuki 54 Raymond Wang
Environmental activist Inventor
20 Rhiannon Tomtishen and 58 Megan Grassell
Madison Vorva Entrepreneur and clothing designer
Environmental activists
60 Kenneth Shinozuka
24 Jack Andraka Designer and inventor
Inventor and researcher
64 Tara Subramaniam
26 Easton LaChappelle Education reform advocate
Inventor
68 Joshua Browder
30 Kelvin Doe Entrepreneur
Inventor
70 Krtin Nithiyanandam
32 Madison Kimrey Scientist and inventor
Political activist
74 Ishita Katyal
34 Joseph Kim Youth advocate
Human rights activist
76 Hadiqa Bashir
38 Melissa Shang Activist against child marriage
Advocate for disability rights and
80 Schuyler Bailar
representation
Transgender rights advocate
40 Jazz Jennings
82 Troye Sivan
Transgender rights advocate
Singer-songwriter, actor, and
44 Malala Yousafzai LGBTQ+ rights activist
Nobel Prize winner and
education advocate
86 Gavin Grimm 134 Amanda Southworth
Transgender youth rights advocate Mental health advocate
90 Tiera Fletcher (née Guinn) 138 Amika George
Advocate for female representation Activist fighting period poverty
in science
142 Millie Bobby Brown
94 Melati and Isabel Wijsen Actress and UNICEF Goodwill
Environmental activists Ambassador
98 Xiuhtezcatl Martinez 146 Bana Alabed
Environmental activist and musician Education and human rights advocate
102 Elijah Walters-Othman 148 Greta Thunberg
Advocate for equal access to Environmental activist
education and job training
152 Canwen Xu
106 Muzoon Rakan Almellehan Advocate for Asian-American heritage
Children’s education advocate and
156 Maya S. Penn
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador
Philanthropist, environmental activist,
110 Josh Lafazan entrepreneur, animator and CEO
Legislator and political activist
160 Hilde Lysiak
114 Zach Latta Journalist
Technologist
164 Anuna De Wever
118 Memory Banda Climate change activist
Activist against child marriage
122 Kadallah Burrowes
Artist and accessible design advocate
126 Lauren Singer 168 More Young People to Inspire
Environmentalist and influencer 173 Read All About It!
130 Sparsh Shah 174 Credits
Disability rights advocate 176 Acknowledgements
Introduction
As a little girl, I drafted a handwritten speech with my sister called
the ‘Kids’ Declaration of Independence from the Groans’. (‘Groans’
was our shorthand for grown-ups.) We had good reason to declare
our independence: we thought there was something terribly overrated
about adulthood. In childhood, when it snowed, my friends and I
delighted; my dad, and many of his grown-up peers, would harrumph
at the weather report emanating from the car radio and mutter about
traffic. All too often, adults seemed harried, displeased and joyless.
Society tells us that kids are selfish and impulsive, that our power
and self-determination has to be limited for our own protection. As a
child, I was tired of hearing about all the things I couldn’t do because
I wasn’t ‘mature’ enough. If the state of our world was what ‘maturity’
had wrought, maybe we all needed to go about growing up a little
differently. So, at the age of twelve, I asked an important question in
my speech at the 2010 TED conference: ‘What can adults learn from
kids?’ The answer is quite a lot.
This collection of speeches by extraordinary young people is
testament to what can be achieved by the next generation. From
climate change to transgender rights, these are children and young
adults proving that, regardless of age, when we dare to care and speak
out Groans in power take note, and can even learn a thing or two.
Questioning ‘common sense’
Traits like impulsiveness, naivety and unguarded honesty are
often panned as ‘childish’, but as we grow up it’s easy to become
desensitized to the way the world works. The Italian political
philosopher Antonio Gramsci used ‘common sense’ to describe the
myths, values and visions of the world a society holds in common,
pointing out that they often benefit those at the top the most.
Why is it that we turn a blind eye to people sleeping on the street?
6 SPEAK UP!
Why should anyone be ashamed of getting their period? Why do
we discriminate against those we see as ‘different’? ‘That’s just the
way things are.’
But at the age of 10, 15 or 20, you haven’t had as much time to
absorb the confused ‘common sense’ of our society. So maybe, just
maybe, the realities of injustice and poverty and environmental
destruction still feel like horrifying surprises that have to be called out.
This naivety can produce the loudest of protestors. Take Swedish
school girl Greta Thunberg as an example: aged 16, she lambasted
world leaders at the United Nations for failing to address the climate
crisis. Elijah Walters-Othman, a 17-year-old youth campaigner, spoke
out in British Parliament to put a spotlight on educational inequality.
In kindergarten, transgender rights advocate Jazz Jennings just
wanted to be treated as the girl she knew she was inside, and didn’t
see why school administrators should think any differently.
For these brave young speakers, ‘That’s just the way things are’
simply was not good enough. They believed in better and could not
be deterred by towering obstacles and adults stubbornly bleating ‘no’;
they made it their mission to be heard and make a difference.
Stronger together
The ‘Declaration of Independence from the Groans’ ended up
somewhere at the bottom of a recycling bin, but that moment
foreshadowed my work to come, including organizing a conference by
and for youth and speaking internationally about the importance of
student input on educational reform. Gradually, I saw more and more
students enter the public speaking and education space, and had
the chance to meet inspiring student leaders like Tara Subramaniam,
whose speech about her ground-breaking work with the non-profit
organization Student Voice is included in this book.
INTrODUCTION 7
The process of researching took me to libraries and online archives,
but most often down online rabbit-holes which began with a simple
search query like ‘Youth activists’. Little wonder that my online searches
were the most fruitful: in our age of instant recording and uploading to
the internet, speeches by young people may be more visible now than
ever before. That’s how I found Madison Kimrey. Despite not being old
enough to cast a ballot herself, aged only 12, she spoke out against a
state law that would make it harder for young people to register to vote.
My research helped me to understand the rich historical legacy
of young people participating in political movements. From the tide
of high school students in Johannesburg, South Africa who marched
peacefully in June 1976 to protest apartheid, to the pro-democracy
students in Hong Kong who held sit-in demonstrations during the 2014
Umbrella Movement.
From novice inventors to unlikely heroes, the stories of the talented
figures featured in this collection teach us over and over again that
we are all more powerful when we research, fight and work together.
We see team efforts like Madison Vorva and rhiannon Tomtishen,
the Girl Scouts fighting palm oil, or the Google Science Fair winners
developing a powerful solution for global crop yields, Ciara Judge and
Emer Hickey. Education advocate and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai
has used her platform to amplify many other young people, like her
friend, the Syrian activist Muzoon Almellehan. British student Amika
George convinced over 200,000 signatories to support her petition to
end ‘period poverty’, caused by lack of access to sanitary products. It
was not only their curiosity, belief and dedication that sparked whole
movements, but the help of friends and comrades worldwide.
Today, we live in a world of unprecedented connection, with more
tools than ever to talk to people without regard to geographical
distance. What kinds of communities could you build in pursuit of
social change?
8 SPEAK UP!
