Meet the speakers of our COP26 Panel: Our climate, our future

Global Alliance - Cities 4 Children is leading an intergenerational panel for the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) called Our Climate, Our Future. The session will bring together the voices of children, youth, mayors, practitioners, and organizations to discuss child well-being in cities. The session will also explore replicable projects that can tackle the climate emergency around the world. 

The session is happening this Thursday, November 11, at 2pm BST. Meet the incredible speakers of this panel!

Chris Michael

Chris Michael is a special series editor for International news at the Guardian in the United Kingdom. He also worked as the former editor of Guardian Cities. He is currently managing and producing special series on international current affairs – particularly urbanisation, environment, science, health and technology. He also created and hosts Reverberate, a Guardian feature podcast series about music that shook history. His series won multiple British Journalism Awards, Foreign Press Association Awards and others

Sarah Sabry

Sarah Sabry is the Global Lead of Urban at Save the Children. She is also the Chair of Global Alliance - Cities 4 Children. Since 2002, Sarah worked as a development practitioner and researcher in Cairo, London and Zürich. This has included managing an NGO working on poverty reduction in Cairo, grant-making for the Ford Foundation, consulting for various organisations such as IIED and the IDRC, setting up the community service programme at AUC, and supporting the start-up of Alfanar, a venture philanthropy organisation. 

Emi Mahmoud

Emi Mahmoud is a former refugee from Sudan. She is a Sudanese-American poet and activist, who won the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam championship. In 2018, she became UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, and in this capacity, has traveled to refugee camps in Kenya, Greece and Jordan, drawing wider attention to the situation of refugees. Mahmoud first encountered spoken word as an undergraduate at Yale University. She joined ¡Oyé!, a spoken-word group affiliated with the Latino Cultural Center on campus, then the Yale Slam Team.

Elizabeth Wathuti

Elizabeth Wathuti is an environmentalist and climate Activist. She is the founder of Green Generation Initiative, the Head of Campaigns at Wangari Maathai Foundation, and Global South Youth Co-Chair of the COP26 Civil Society and Youth Advisory Council.

The Green Generation Initiative seeks to address challenges such as deforestation, climate change and environmental injustices, by nurturing young environmental enthusiasts to take action on climate action, zero hunger, quality education, and life on land.

Rt. Hon. Helen Clark 

Helen Clark is the Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. She served as the Prime Minister of New Zealand for three successive terms from 1999–2008. She advocated strongly for New Zealand’s comprehensive program on sustainability and for tackling the problems of climate change. She became Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). At the same time, she was also Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of all UN funds, programmes, agencies, and departments working on development issues.

Trudy Harrison MP 

Hon. Trudy Harrison, MP is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State of the Department for Transport (DfT) in the United Kingdom.

Her ministerial brief includes decarbonisation of transport (including the Office for Zero-Emission Vehicles); environment (including the Joint Air Quality Unit); future of transport (including the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles); women’s safety on the transport network. 

Hon. Pohamba Shifeta

Hon. Pohamba Shifeta is the Minister of Environment & Tourism of the Republic of Namibia. He was first elected to the National Assembly of Namibia in 2004 as a SWAPO candidate. He was appointed as Deputy Minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture in March 2005, and he retained his position after the 2009 general election. He was active in the SWAPO-led National Union of Namibian Workers and Namibia National Students Organisation since 1988.

Hon. Claudio Castro

Hon. Claudio Castro is the Mayor of Renca, Santiago de Chile. During his time at university he was a student leader, and became involved in social projects such as Building the future (2003-2005), Arriba Chile and Now is When (2007-2008).

He was elected mayor of Renca commune in 2016, and was overwhelmingly re-elected in May 2021. He is a strong advocate for climate action. 

Naranbayar Batmunkh

Naranbayar Batmunkh is the Director Social Policy Division at the Governor’s office, Bayankhongor province, Mongolia. The Local government of Bayankhongor has approved the Clean air action plan 2019-2022 focused on reducing air pollution, reducing exposures to air pollution and strengthening primary health care for maternal and child health. As a part of this project, clean, energy efficient and affordable solution- Cooking, heating and insulation products and service (CHIPS) was designed.

Ana Malia Falemaka

Ana is an 18-year-old youth mentor and activist at Talitha Project in Tonga, an organisation that works towards empowering young women and girls. With the aid of funds from programmes such as Pacific Girl, they run empowering sessions for girls in Tonga on topics including Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, Violence, Self Esteem and Confidence. Outside of Talitha, Ana raises awareness on social media, and at workshops and forums on topics including Climate Change.

Katrina Lisnichuk

Katrina Lisnichuk specialises in open source geographic information systems applied to risk management and urban planning. She has 5 years experience in information management, learning and coordination of social urban projects.

She is humanitarian coordinator certified by the Global Shelter Cluster led by the IFRC and the UNCR. She is also junior researcher at The Research and innovation center in the National University of Asuncion, architecture Faculty.

Nomundari Urantulga

Nomundari Urantulga is a Youth Activist from Mongolia. She has joined different events and workshops which include Youth for Change and Climate change and me. Last year in November, she successfully moderated the Let Our Voice Be Heard dialogue between children and the Government on the impact of COVID-19 on Asia’s most vulnerable girls and boys. She is also young leader of World Vision Mongolia and a member of the Child Rights Connect advisory team.

Umesh Balal Magar

Umesh Balal Magar is the Network Coordinator at Nepalese Youth for Climate Action (NYCA) in Nepal. NYCA is a Nepalese Youth for Climate Action is a coalition of Nepalese youth and youth group working on climate change issue in Nepal. He is one of the country coordinators from Nepal of COY16 and selected delegates who will represent COY16. He is also a Red Alert Campaigner in Nepal and actively engaged in support of Save the Children Nepal.

Tim Gill

Tim Gil is an independent scholar and writer, and a global advocate for children’s play and mobility. Tim’s book Urban Playground: How child-friendly urban planning and design can save cities was published in 2021 by RIBA Publishing. His book No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society, published by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, came out in 2007. Tim’s work cuts across public policy, education, child care, planning, transport, urban design and playwork. It engages with academics, practitioners, policymakers, the media and the wider public. 

Daniel Onyango

Daniel Onyango is a Community Youth Leader and founder of the Hope Raisers initiative in Kenya. Daniel is the project lead of Future Yetu, an initiative within Hope Raisers, that explores digital storytelling as a way to spark dialogue between Kogorocho's residents (one of Nairobi's biggest slums) and local governments in climate adaptation interventions. He has great experience working with marginalized youths and children in my community and I in knowledge on a strategic level. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science and sociology from the University of Nairobi.

Omnia el Omrani

Omnia is a final-year MBBCh medical student at Ain Shams University in Egypt. She has more than 6 years of experience in global health and student advocacy. She has attended 3 United Nations Climate Change Conferences, representing medical students worldwide in the International Federation of Medical Students’ Association (IFMSA). She is currently an associate at Women Leaders for Planetary Health and a member of the United Nations Children’s Fund Youth Leaders Program and the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety. and Health Alliance.

Zoleka Mandela

Zoleka Mandela is the Global Ambassador of the Child Health Initiative. She became a campaigner for road safety and child rights after losing her daughter, Zenani, aged 13, in a road traffic crash in 2010. She has taken her uncompromising call for action on urban safety and the environment to many UN ministerial and high-level conferences and was a keynote speaker at World Urban Forum 2018. She is currently one of the figureheads for the UN’s ‘Streets for Life’ campaign which calls for action to reduce urban traffic speed to default 30km/h to encourage walking and cycling, protect children and combat climate change. 

Saul Billingsley

Saul Billingsley is the Executive Director of FIA Foundation. The FIA Foundation is a partner in the Global Alliance – Cities for Children. The Foundation is a sustainable mobility philanthropy which coordinates the Child Health Initiative, a coalition of NGOs and UN agencies working together to raise the mobility rights and needs of children and youth in transportation, health and urban planning agendas.