By Sujata Jena

Bhubaneswar, July 28, 2020: Archana Soreng, who has been named by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to his new Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, says her guiding principle is Jesus’s call to love other people.

The Catholic young woman from Odisha also says she is thrilled to be part of the global movement for safe environment.

“I am thrilled and honored to take up this responsibility as an indigenous person from India,” the 24-year-old tribal girl told Matters India on June 28, a day after Guterres announced her name.

She says the new responsibility is an extension of what her ancestors have been doing for millennia.

“Our ancestors have been protecting the forest and nature over the ages through their traditional knowledge and practices. Now it is on us to be the front runners in combating the climate crisis,” she explained.

The announcement marks a new effort by the United Nations to bring more young leaders into decision-making and planning processes, as the UN works to mobilize climate action as part of the COVID-19 recovery efforts.

She expressed her gratitude to her family and ancestors for being instrumental in her life and journey. “It is because of the struggles and sacrifices they made, I have been able to get education and come up so far,” Soreng said when asked about her immediate feelings.

Announcing the new team, the UN chief said July 27 that he launched his “Youth Advisory Group on climate change today to provide perspectives, ideas and solutions that will help us scale up climate action,.”

Soreng, the UN statement noted, is “experienced in advocacy and research, and she is working to document, preserve, and promote traditional knowledge and cultural practices of indigenous communities.”

Soreng, a climate activist, is part of the seven member committee of the United Nations Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

She has been actively engaged with the UN’s environmental program since 2019.

The climate activist is the only daughter of Bijaya Kumar Soreng and Usha Kerketta of Rorukela Odisha. She has a brother. The family lives with grand and great-grand parents.

She studied B A Honours in Political Science from Patna Women’s College, managed by the Apostolic Carmel nuns in the Bihar state capital. Later, she studied M A in Regulatory Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai.

She is the former national convener of Tribal Commission at Adivasi Yuva Chetna Manch, All India Catholic University Federation (AICUF).

Soreng was also the president of the TISS Students’ Union.

Soreng says displacement, migration and disposition of world view has led to the loss of indigenous values.

“I want to bring the indigenous youth together and make them realize that the protection of culture is something we do not do, it is the way we live.”

She says her role basically would be to provide a platform to youth to express their views and forward them to the secretary general.

“For this, I will put a lot more effort to bring together various environmental group, indigenous group and youth group to engage them in climate action,” she said.

The India youth says her guiding principle is the saying of Jesus, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Neighbors for her, she adds, are humans and the entire creation with whom they live. “That is why we need to love and protect them,” she explains.

The members of the Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change represent the diverse voices of young people from all regions as well as small island states. They will offer perspectives and solutions on climate change, from science to community mobilization, from entrepreneurship to politics, and from industry to conservation, the UN said.

The initial seven members of the group have been chosen to give frank and fearless advice to the secretary-general, at a time of growing urgency to hold government and corporate leaders to account on climate action.

Soreng joins six other young climate leaders from around the world who have been named by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to his new Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

The other selected members of the group are climate activist Nisreen Elsaim of Sudan, Fiji’s Ernest Gibson, young economist Vladislav Kaim of Moldova, Sophia Kianni of the United States, Nathan Metenier of France and lawyer and human rights defender Paloma Costa of Brazil.