Name: Juliette Pepe

Social Justice Group: 2023-2024, Climate Change: Rising Sea Levels / Plastic Pollution

Date of Fieldwork: January 26, 2024

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):LREI High school visit interview with Keanu a Climate Change expert

Type of Fieldwork: [69]

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:

Keanu, a senior at LREI High school is a youth activist specifically in Climate Change. We walked to high school, met in the lobby and went to the library to interview him, as we were eager to learn more about what he does and his opinions on everything that we are studying. We took notes on what he said as well as recording the entire interview.

Keanu while being a youth activist put this to use and visited a sit-in in the UN Climate Change Conferences. And overall tries to make a change in his daily life by finding ways people don’t waste plastic or materials just by throwing them out. I learned that plastic pollution is one of the main social justice problems that are just set aside because people are ignoring it and not paying attention to it, and it will just keep getting worse if we keep doing that. It’s a major problem that needs to be addressed and Keanu said people aren’t spending much time on it and aren’t solving the problems they need to, as he saw while visiting the UN. Activism has to start with the people coming together as a community and that will never happen if we keep putting important problems aside and not giving them our full attention.

This experience was overall eye opening because I got to see people that are my age taking charge and making a change for what’s right. This leads me to feel empowered as well as eager to continue this project even more by studying plastic pollution and how everyday people can help. Keanu has shown me and my group that just average kids can make a change and that’s what I hope to accomplish.