An event safety guide for youth climate activists

Introduction

The Youth Climate Movement (YCM) is one of the most important activist movements of our time. Events like COP are exciting moments where we get to come together and speak up on what we expect from our leaders, but participation also presents certain risks. Our campaigning can put us at odds with powerful forces, so it is important that we take care to ensure both our safety and the broader sustainability of our movement.

The level of risk we face as youth climate activists (YCAs) varies based on many things, including our lived experience and identity factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and country of origin (to name a few). Some risks we have no control over (e.g. a road accident caused by a third party). For other risks we can take steps to either reduce the likelihood of an incident taking place (e.g. protecting our accounts and devices from hacking with strong passwords and antivirus software) or to reduce the impact if an incident occurs (e.g. by having access to legal support in the case of an arrest, using the ‘disappearing messages’ function to protect old chats from being read if your phone is searched).

Thinking and talking about risks in advance creates a space for us to understand each other’s risk levels and perceptions, gain knowledge about the risks we face, and develop our capacity to respond.

The purpose of this guide is to help YCAs understand, navigate, reduce and respond to the risks that may arise before, during and after an event, and includes information about available support. Being well prepared and knowing who to turn to if an incident occurs helps us to ensure safe participation for all YCAs at climate events.

This guide has been co-created with MAPA activists, risk specialists and climate justice defenders with the intention of supporting YCAs attending climate events like COP .

If you need support, you can contact the Safety Hub Coordinator by email, Signal or WhatsApp. See Safety Basics for further details.

safetyhub@proton.me | +49 177 684 4896

If you have feedback or comments regarding this website, please email us at ycmsafety@protonmail.com.