Latin America

Global Action Month 2022: Promoting children´s environmental rights in the Region

The Latin American region has a very rich biological and cultural diversity. It is represented in its various ancestral knowledge, in the traditional methods of cultivation and use of herbs, in the relationship with nature. It is necessary to emphasize the way that life in community characterizes the traditional Latin American peoples in the rural and the urban, sharing their knowledge in an intergenerational way. In urban contexts, for example, in favelas and popular neighborhoods, the strengthening of community life becomes palpable as a collective way out, in the face of very unfair and unequal living conditions, largely due to the absence of weakened and dependent States.

The increase in epidemics, diseases caused by viruses and the recent COVID-19 pandemic is a sign of crisis. A limit was reached, this being a "sanitary limit", to which the conception and human use of nature as a mere source of resources threw us; and demonstrating the need for understanding that humanity is part of the web of life, of nature, whose imbalance and degradation inevitably impacts on human physical and mental health.

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has made use of historical inequalities such as hunger, unworthy working, precarious basic services and access to health to cause all the damage it is causing.

With all this, as young defenders of rights who are politically persecuted, criminalized and deprived of fundamental rights, we continue to fight to achieve what we call "good living" not only for us but also for future generations, who deserve to live in a world more respectful of the environment and with a clearer awareness of environmental responsibility,   creating and proposing the construction of a participatory society where universal human rights are protected, without barriers where everyone participates without exception.

In Latin America, the Global Month of Action opens the opportunity for both young people and children to raise their voices and express not only the demands they have but also the possible solutions, although not to end but to mitigate the environmental crisis in the region.

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/Ox-SGP39d1M

The Month of Global Action gives us the opportunity to show all the continuous actions that we have been carrying out in our territories and training spaces, in addition to connecting with young people from all over the region and sharing not only information, but also activities and initiatives that strengthen us as a country, but also as a Regional Youth Network.