Anna Kernahan
Anna Kernahan is a climate, ecological, social justice and human rights activist, and founder of Fridays for Future Northern Ireland. From Belfast, Northern Ireland, they are also a writer. They protest every Friday to acknowledge climate change, as part of Fridays For Future, a global climate strike movement.
Early life
Kernahan was born on 25 July 2002. According to them, at a young age, Kernahan had already a passion for nature being interested in ecology and wildlife and loving being in nature, going on walks through the hills and reading nature encyclopedias. On 2019, on the age of 16, after reading about Greta Thunberg, Fridays For Future and reports concerning the environment such as the 2018 IPCC special report, Kernahan became concerned with the climate emergency believing that the educational system is not teaching with enough significance about the climate crisis and that politicians are not totally aware of the crisis. So, they started raising awareness about the pollution impact by making scientific data on this topic known and protesting, fighting and demanding the politicians to act on the climate crisis.Activism
According to them, Kernahan started as a social justice activist when they were 13 years old.Then, on 2019, they decided to school strike for the environment, although their school didn't support the idea of school striking and only let them do it with a few restricitions. Firstly, in May 2019, Kernahan joined the Northern Ireland Students' Climate Network, the Youth Strike 4 Climate branch of Northern Ireland, striking monthly. Then, in September 2019, they created Fridays For Future Northern Ireland, the national Northern Irish section of Friday For Future protesting and raising awareness about climate change every Friday.
Thus, Kernahan has been school striking every Friday without any exception on the sculpture Spirit of Belfast, protesting frequently alone. Besides remonstrating for the environment, they write poems, their thoughts on the environmental problems and their experiences as an activist and often make art to concern people about the pollution and other climate problems, specially directed to politicians and governments.