O que eu aprendi na Mock COP26? What did I learn at Mock COP26?
I’m Via and I’m an event coordinator on Mock COP26. I got in the project as a volunteer in the translation team. I heard about the project through Slack from Polluters Out, through a post by one of the volunteers. I looked a little about the project and sent a message to participate. At first, it was in the dark, so I went to a meeting on a Saturday, there is no one. But it was really cool, everyone was very well nice and gentle and soon I noticed that other Latinos were not acquired at the meeting and in the team until then. As time goes by, new people arrive and they ended up getting very close to me, like Dom and Aoife, people I like a lot.
After a while, Katie, from SOS-UK, sent me a message to participate in a meeting with a Brazilian group. I fell in love with the project over there. When Katie told me she was in charge of coordination, I was very happy, I thought it would be a big responsibility (and it was), but it was going to be all right. And everything went well, and it was much better than I expected.
As the months went by, I started talking to people, researchers, lawyers, associations, which I admire a lot and never thought I would get to talk to. I met incredible people and worked with incredible people. I made very improbable friends, who speak many different languages, who are from different places. I hope to keep in touch.
The moment I most expected was to meet the delegates of my country, Brazil, they exceeded all my expectations. It took us 9 hours to select the delegates and I can say: it was worth it, the incredible delegations were incredible, we saw a lot of delegates doing their best, it was incredible.
Today I know that each young person has a context, but that everyone has the will and the potential to change according to the situations that are wrong. It gives me hope, a lot of hope.
If there’s one thing I learned at Mock COP, it’s that we’re all together, no matter where, and that’s why we’re going to be able to change everything that needs to be changed and, in the end, build a future in which we want to live.