Fridays for future NI 5 day climate protest, January 2023

This week, we protested Monday to Friday, every single day, to start the year off strong. Fridays for future NI wanted to start the year off strong to show Stormont that this is the year they can no longer ignore us. A climate emergency has been declared for northern Ireland, and a climate act has been declared with ways of how to act as though we are in an emergency, however the people in power are doing no such thing.

We wanted to start the year as we mean to go on, and following on from this week of action, we are going to be back at Belfast city hall every single Friday of this year. Follow fridays for future northern Ireland on social media to get updates on the latest actions and how you get involved in the protests. If you also want to dip your toe in further, message me about joining our organising group chat.

There are big things coming this year. Join us in the revolution. This is the year we stop taking no for an answer from stormont. This is the year we take back the power of the people and utilise every tool we have to put climate action at the forefront.

On Monday, we were pleasantly surprised that a couple of other people were also there, about 5 or 6 in total, and it motivated us to keep going. There's always the fear that no matter how much planning you do, still noone will come.

However on Tuesday, it was just me and Georgia, but I think the rain had a factor on this day. On the other hand, digitally our engagement had never been higher, FFFNI twitter doubled in numbers of followers and multiple media outlets had reached out to us to help us spread the word.

Wednesday came and we kept going, and this came with more people again, about 8-10. I was so pleasantly surprised by this, as after 6 months of solo striking in 2019, I still am used to online support rarely turning into physical numbers. However it was growing and growing, and we could feel the energy in the air. We had also started planning for having a larger protest on the Friday.

Friday came, and the turnout was incredible! We had about 30 people, maybe more, so we had grown four or five times over, and multiple political parties, climate organisations and media outlets were represented. We chanted through the megaphone and we made our message very clear. Roll on this year of making every Friday as successful in terms of support for the movement and increased awareness of the climate, and hopefully the numbers continue to grow as they did this week.

Links to media reports on the day of the larger protest:

1. https://belfastmedia.com/city-centre-climate-strikes-kick-start-the-new-year-with-a-clear-message

2. https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/climate-activists-fear-stormont-wont-25915357.amp

Links to how to get involved:

1. https://twitter.com/fffbelfast?t=PKelMOHhnCqAdwOcIjV_iQ&s=09

2. https://fridaysforfuture.org/

Links to learn more about the climate science:

1. https://www.ipcc.ch/

2. https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/climate-change

.

.

Please consider donating to my GoFundMe so as I have the capacity to continue raising awareness –>

https://www.gofundme.com/f/24w0zcj81c?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&pc_code=ot_co_das