I was in the actions working group for YOUNGO, this meant that I helped to coordinate and acquire permission for actions being run inside the COP21 area, the blue zone. As the first week was ending myself and a fellow activist Louis Plottel from Canada realized that the YOUNGO actions were not unified and were very haphazard. A rift was forming and we saw a need to unify the youth that to us seemed a bit divided.

We organized a ‘Die in’ action, where at a certain time we would all just drop down on the floor and just ‘DIE’ for 30 seconds (this was all the time we we’re allowed). This was to show the people around us that the future is already feeling the affects of climate change and we don’t want to die as well. The main objective for this action was to show ourselves as well as the people around us the power of the YOUTH. So we gathered everyone we could, which were quite a number of people and successfully complete a Die in throughout the COP21 venue in Hall 4 primarily and throughout all action zones that had been predesignated.

We had organized this literally within 11 hours and we had successfully completed it. We had dozens of youth involved, inside and outside of the COP21 venue. This frantic mad dash to organize the locations with the security, organize the people to these locations as well as setting up a press conference after was certainly maddening but we did it. The two of us with the help of many others successfully completed our little vision and it was definitely a success I feel in my eyes.

The whole event went well and our post action press conference, though small, went off smoothly and we were done. I feel our action really made a big impact and helped show the Youth at COP21 our impact. In a way I feel the youth were more unified seeing everyone do this together, seeing the media scramble around and wonder what you are doing. I feel this shows everyone that a unified youth voice is much more powerful. I don’t know if I directly made an impact but I would like to think that I did make a change, no matter how small.