Twelve-year-old Le Huyen Minh from Quang Binh raised her voice together with five others representatives from Viet Nam at the Children’s Climate Forum 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ahead of the UN conference on climate change, which closed yesterday, 164 children and teenagers from 44 countries and territories met in the Danish capital to discuss the recommendations made by world leaders.

Minh was confident and excited to take a message from Vietnamese children to the international forum.

Minh’s speech at the forum impressed other delegates. A long time ago, Vietnamese elders used to have proverbs about weather. For example, the saying, “water jumps to the land in July”, means that the dry season finishes and the rainy season begins in July. “However, this is no longer true, especially in the central region of Viet Nam,” Minh said at the forum.

The Vietnamese delegates used photographs to help illustrate their thoughts on the subject. Minh divided her collection of photos into four sections. The first section featured dazzling pictures of nature that had been destroyed by the people in the second section. The third section captured children’s expressions as they gazed at homes destroyed by storms. The final section featured photos of Vietnamese children fighting against climate change.

“Climate change threatens our lives, our families and our future, and we, the youth delegates, will not sit back and watch,” Minh spoke at the forum.

“Our communities are deprived of clean drinking water, denied access to education and vulnerable to diseases every time it floods.”

With superb English skills, Minh also worked as a translator between Vietnamese representatives and foreign guests, who visited Viet Nam’s showroom in Copenhagen.

“We, the children of the world, should have a strong voice in the international climate change debate because we are the future,” Minh says.

“To children and youth, everything is at stake in the international negotiations on climate change because they will need to live with climate change and the consequences of decisions taken by adults today. They have a right to make themselves heard in the debate,” said Steen M Andersen, Secretary General of UNICEF Denmark.

Minh has returned to Viet Nam, but she immediately joined other propaganda projects. Being a member of the provincial Club for Little Journalists, Minh plans to write about and photograph the environment.

Minh has already published one book of poetry and has a second book in the works. She hopes to be the Prime Minister of Viet Nam in the future.

VNN/Vietnam News