Empowering Children to Act on Climate Change through Art in Greece

My name is Aikaterina Lengou, and I am the President of The Children’s Art Gallery of Greece.

The Children’s Art Gallery of Greece is a pioneering educational and cultural organisation that aims at promoting and encouraging children’s artistic creations on an international level. By organizing a variety of educational programmes, thematic competitions, painting exhibitions and artistic events, we release the expression of children through their innate language – art. We have now organized and conducted over fifty educational-cultural programmes for children and youth, between the ages of 4 and 18 – both in Greece and internationally.

After completing the UN CC:Learn course on Children and Climate Change, and being enlightened by the knowledge I had acquired, I was inspired to organize an international education programme for children and youth – focusing on empowering children as actors of change through art. Me and my colleagues at The Children’s Art Gallery of Greece therefore conducted an international painting competition with the central theme: “Empowering Children to Act on Climate Change through Art.”

Alongside the competition, we held seminars to inform the children about climate change – making the step from learning to acting. The children then understood what the problem means to them, as well as what key actions they can take to mitigate it – from adaptation and low-carbon development to climate finance and engaging in climate negotiations. The response was immense, and culminated in the creation of a digital platform featuring the distinguished artworks from around the world.

This collection, entitled “Empowering Children to Act on Climate Change through Art”, is a great example of both the resilience of children and their strong will to change our world for the better. In the end, children and youth from 30 countries answered our call to create climate artworks, sending a global message of the need to protect our planet with respect for future generations.

Through their artworks, the young artists portrayed the urgent need to embrace our planet: by protecting the oceans, by preventing air pollution, by recycling and by protecting the forests. The message is loud and clear: the time to act is now. The example set by the young artists is illustrated in their creations, and forms a life lesson for all of us.

To be able to empower children as actors of change – and to give them a voice to teach, and to guide the world on how to strengthen their resilience to climate change – was a miraculous experience for all of us working at The Children’s Art Gallery. UN CC:Learn’s Children and Climate Change course offered us the seeds of change, which we planted in our children’s conscience – so that a new future will flourish, on a healthier planet for all its inhabitants.

Get Involved:

Have you ever participated in an activity or competition that addresses climate change in your country? Share your experience with us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. We want to hear what you have learned!

Start your learning journey:

Join our global learning community at www.unccelearn.org and take our free courses on climate change and green economy. Our course catalogue offers several courses that may be of interest such as:

• Children and Climate Change
• Cities and Climate Change
• Sustainable Diet
• Climate Change: From Learning to Action