SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Dec. 1 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Twelve-year-old Colombian activist Francisco Vera Manzanares, founder of the Guardians for Life movement, made up of children of the world who defend the environment, visits the Canary Islands at the request of the Arona SOS Atlántico Festival.
The young defender of the planet thus fulfills his dream of visiting some islands on which he has investigated from his native Colombia and reaffirms his commitment to bring the Festival’s message of defense of the Oceans to Latin American countries.
Francisco Vera Manzanares participated last October in the presentation of the program of this eighth edition in Madrid, a few days before going to the Summit against Climate Change in Glasgow (COP26), an English city where he coincided with Greta Thunberg.
Tomorrow, Thursday, Vera Manzanares will meet at the Infanta Leonor de Los Cristianos Auditorium, in Arona (Tenerife), with students from the municipality, with whom she will share her ideas for a healthy planet and will expose the importance of marine fauna and the oceans for existence of the human being. This activity will be broadcast, by streaming, from 10.30 am through the Festival page on Facebook.
On Friday, December 3, the young activist will travel to Arrecife (Lanzarote), where he will star in a meeting, open to the public, at the Insular Library (Rambla Medular) at 6:00 p.m. With limited capacity, invitations must be withdrawn on the website www.sosatlanticofestival.com.
Finally, La Gomera will receive Vera Manzanares on Saturday, December 4, where at 6.30 pm she will offer her knowledge on environmental activism to the public at the Cabildo de La Gomera. With limited capacity, the invitation must be withdrawn at the institution itself.
Last October, Francisco Vera Manzanares held a dialogue live at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid with the TVE journalist Mónica López, within the framework of the official opening of the eighth edition of the Arona SOS Atlántico Festival, where he made public his formal offer to become an ambassador of the Festival in America, “because I fully coincide with its objectives and I believe that I must collaborate so that its message reaches the geographical territory that I know best and that has inspired my environmental convictions”.
This young Colombian activist advocates that the voice of children be heard, their ideas “about how we should interact with our environment, so that it is not altered by the effect of human impact.”
‘GUARDIANS FOR LIFE’.
Francisco Javier Vera Manzanares and Juan Alejandro Gaviria began the Guardians for Life movement, with a first action to plant trees in La Molienda Park, together with five other children, with which they asked their municipal government to implement a Climate Action Already.
Little by little they were extending their actions, until they reached the Congress of the Republic of Colombia itself, in 2019, where Francisco Vera Manzanares asked “to legislate for life”, in a historic intervention that drew the country’s attention.
In addition to continuing to request the declaration of a climate emergency or the prohibition of testing in Colombia or the use of single-use plastics and promoting environmental pedagogy, this movement has already planted some 300 trees in the Latin American country.
The young Colombian activist who is visiting the Canary Islands these days, where he will make direct contact with various natural settings in the sea and in the island territory, points out the responsibility of governments when taking climate action to mitigate the effects of global warming, industries to reduce their greenhouse emissions, and citizens to exercise citizenship for life.
In January of this year, Vera Manzanares was recognized by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, for her contribution to building a better society and, a month later, was appointed Goodwill Ambassador of the European Union Delegation In colombia.
