A month till the event with the Pope in Assisi. “Forced to resolve the adult’s errors. Thank you Pope Francis for having enlightened our attention to these themes” says the Thai integral ecology activist.

By the editorial staff

ASSISI (Italy) – Not only the youth but also adolescents are amongst the participants of the Economy of Francesco, the big community that will seal a Pact with the Holy Father for a new economy on the coming 24^th of September, at the end of the three-day program held from the 22^nd to the 24^th of September 2022. The community, who in these three years never stopped meeting and working online, consists of about twenty minors, coming from different countries, amongst which Ralyn Satidtanasarn also called Lilly, a very young Thai integral ecology activist who from a lot of years battles the use of plastic.

Even though the majority of the teens are Italian, there are adolescents aged from 13 – 17 years, coming from Syria, Vietnam, Thailand, Slovakia and Brazil, engaged in the various initiatives like the #ZeroHunger one and others and interested in the integral ecology themes. There will also be a young Brazilian involved in the Pacar School project, born within the EoF.

“This time – says Luigino Bruni, scientific director of the Economy of Francesco – is a time of new prominence of the youth and in particular of the teenagers. Never like in these last years, have the youngest assumed the leadership in the request for a radical change of the economy and society, the most radical that has ever been asked in the last decades. Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future generations – adds Bruni – have represented the most important news of the 21^st century on the environmental culture and on a new development model. Today, these adolescents are on the frontiers of world change, they are the teachers, who exercise a real magisterium for all of us, and we are happy that the teenagers, the prophecy of Francesco, are present and active in the EoF with great significance.”

The fourteen year old Ralyn Satidtanasarn underlines the effort of the young ones like her: “Even adolescents and children cannot permit themselves the luxury to ignore the world that surrounds them. We are being forced to resolve the adult’s problems for the fear of not having a clean and sustainable future. The adults should leave a better world for their own children. They should act concretely to resolve the current problems like climate change, pollution and inequality.”

The effort of this young Thai girl began since she was a child as she herself narrates: “As a child I’ve always worried and committed myself for the environment: as citizens of the world we all have the responsibility for sustainability. Only being eight years old then, I tried doing what was right, reducing the use of plastic and telling my classmates and family to be aware of the impact of this on the environment.

Unfortunately, individual activism cannot do much, thus I chose to confront the problem at its root, at a corporate and government level. (….) At the beginning of 2020, the mono use of bags in more than 70 major retailers was banned at a national level. This was one of my successes. I learnt that the environmental issues concern everybody, and so we all have the responsibility to contribute to the change.”

For Ralyn, EoF is “an excellent way to begin a dialogue on the what are the impacts of the young on the climate” and when she will be at Assisi, she has a clear idea of what she will say: “I would firstly like to thank Pope Francis for the teachings and the kindness he has shared during his years of pontificate. I would also thank him for having spread awareness on all the current problems of the world and for having deeply sustained the teens like me on raising our voice and being heard by the big people, like him, who can help us make a difference.”