Spanish Exchange Student's Climate Mission in Michigan

The Climate Leaders Fellowship program teaches students about climate change and environmental sustainability, and guides them in designing and launching a volunteer project in their own communities.

The online program is offered in a collaboration between the Stanford University Deliberative Democracy Lab and the Rustic Pathways Foundation.

Read Ix’s story about their project below!

I am Ixeya Olivar, but everyone calls me Ix. I am 16 years old and I am from Spain, but right now I am doing an exchange year in Michigan, US. I love hanging out with my friends, dancing, swimming and I love the ocean. That probably was why I started being so interested in climate change, because the ocean is one of the most affected by this problem and we can’t let something that wonderful get destroyed by our actions.

I was mostly addressing the excessive consumption of plastic in our society.

For my project I reached people from my school as a member of the Earth Club. I utilized the club so more people would listen to me and I gave a talk about climate change to make them conscious about what’s happening on our planet, and how each one of us can make a difference.

During that talk, donations were accepted to help the fundraiser that me and other fellow students in this program were doing. We were raising funds to get more recycling trash cans and carton containers for our lunch food at school.

We also raised funds with a fashion show where people from our school participated and made clothing with old newspapers. I have to add that there were some pretty good submissions and we voted for the best one. Thanks to both of these fundraisers, we collected enough money for our project and doubled the members in Earth Club.

I am really proud of everything Jessica, the Earth Club and I have done. It was hard to get so many people involved and have the high school agree with it, but in the end everything was worth it. I hope, even though I am leaving the US now, that everyone always remembers that it’s not so hard to contribute to this huge cause with really little changes in our life.

Thank you and the whole Rustic Pathways team for this opportunity.