‘Young people are angry’: the teenage activists shaping our future

Fed up with waiting for the older generation to sort out its problems, a growing number of teenage activists are taking matters into their own hands. Here, six motivated people reveal why they’ve decided to fight for a better worldIn a political climate where most adults are inert with despair, a growing number of teenagers are responding with action. After 14 children and three adults were massacred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, it was students – not parents, teachers or political representatives – who organised themselves to campaign for changes to US gun laws. The March for Our Lives demonstration in Washington, DC on 24 March was accompanied by sister marches around the world: millions of young people supporting each other and demanding policy reform. Lead campaigner Emma González, a high-school student who now has more than 1.5m Twitter followers, made a call to arms for her peers to: “Fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job.”González is one of many teenagers shattering the stereotypes of the lazy, entitled, self-obsessed millennial. More and more teenagers are noisily questioning the world they’re inheriting and demanding things work differently. Here, we meet some of the young activists whose voices are increasingly impossible to dismiss. Continue reading...