This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. For the last week, Indigenous leaders from around the world have converged in New York for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII. It’s the largest global gathering of Indigenous peoples, and the forum provides space for participants to bring their issues to international authorities, often when their own governments have refused to take action. This year’s forum focuses on how U.N. member states have, or have not, protected the rights of Indigenous peoples, and conversations range from the environmental effects of extractive industries to climate change and violence against women. The forum is an intergenerational space. Young people in attendance often work alongside elders and leaders to come up with solutions and address ongoing challenges. Grist interviewed seven Indigenous youth attending UNPFII this year hailing from Africa, the Pacific, North and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Arctic. ‘We will keep pushing for solutions’ Joshua Amponsem, 33, is Asante from Ghana and the founder of Green Africa Youth Organization, a youth-led group in Africa that promotes energy sustainability. He also is the co-director of the Youth Climate Justice Fund which provides funding opportunities to bolster youth participation in climate change solutions. Since the Trump administration pulled funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Amponsem has seen the people and groups he works with suffer from the loss of financial help. It’s already hard to be a young person fighting climate change, he says. Less…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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