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How I Built Resilience: Varshini Prakash of Sunrise Movement
November 5, 2020
VARSHINI PRAKASH
Varshini Prakash is a climate change activist and co-founder and executive direct of the Sunrise Movement. She was born and raised in Massachusetts and attended UMass Amherst. The Sunrise Movement, which Varshini launched in the summer of 2017, is a youth-led political movement that advocates for direct political action on climate change. Her goal is to create a movement so large (millions of people) that it creates a halt to normal life. She was named an advisor on Joe Biden's climate task force in 2020.
Varshini discusses her realization that the key to climate change activism is developing a large political movement. She admits that the beginning days of her movement were tough - she only had a few people who were based all over the country. Over time, Varshini was able to connect to hundreds of people, advising and training them on how to connect with people in their own community to grow the movement. She took a stand in Nancy Pelosi's office, demanding that democrat leaders will not be backed by oil and gas companies and that Pelosi would back the Green New Deal.
My main takeaway from this podcast is that the Sunrise Movement is backed by the younger generation. Varshini points out that many of the people in her movement are so young that they cannot even vote, yet they still fight for this cause. She says, "I'm watching fourteen year olds, who can't even vote in this election, who are training and leading hundreds of other young people in how to get politically activated." Varshini's movement shows the power that young people, who are part of my generation, can have. These moments of action show that change can and will happen.
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