A young Samoan has made history by becoming the youngest recipient of the 2015 Commonwealth Youth Awards.
Sixteen-year-old Brianna Fruean was awarded the Climate Change, Environment Protection Award in London yesterday.
She is the only recipient from the Pacific.
The other Commonwealth award winners selected from 53 Commonwealth countries were Gulalai Ismail, 28, from Africa Region, Julius Shirima, 25, from the Caribbean and Nolana Lynch, 25, from Canada.
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Thousands had applied for the Commonwealth Awards. Ms. Fruean was among 16 finalists.
The awards are designed to help celebrate the role of young people as nation builders and partners in development, offering young people under 30 an opportunity to inspire others and gain international recognition for their development work.
A student of Robert Louis Stevenson High School, Ms. Fruean is the daughter of the late Raymond and Pauline Fruean.
She is a young environmentalist advocate and has been since she was 11 years old.
She has passion and dedication to save the environment at all levels.
She was also recognized during the National Youth Awards 2013 as one of the Young Environmental Advocate, an initiative of the Ministry of Women, Community & Social Development that takes place on an annual basis in collaboration with the Private sector recognizing the achievements and services of young people and young entrepreneurs towards Samoa’s sustainable development.
She believes that saving the environment starts with the individual.
She leads the implementation of practical activities engaging the community, particularly youth clean-up campaigns, composting, tree planting and establishing youth networks to fight against climate change.
In school, Ms. Fruean mobilises her peers to be more environmental sensitive, practice environment friendly action such as sorting rubbish, implement composting and writing messages on climate change and environment related. She has influenced her peers in other schools, engaged families, communities, and teachers to be environmentally sensitive and supportive.
Ms. Fruean has conducted a number of climate change activities throughout her five years as a climate change advocate, where she has visited schools and taught children and youth (preschool to year 13) about climate change coming from a student their own age and empowering them to be agents of change.
She started a Children’s Eco-group at 11 years of age at Vaiala Beach School called ‘Small Voices” – to do environmental projects in school, promote green-mindset at young age; with Small Voices started out with 8 active members and has grown over 500 registered members ( age 5- 26) over the last five years.
At the regional level, Ms. Fruean has been invited to attend regional forums and meetings on climate change/ environment.
Since her exposure to regional and international meetings she has become a respected young leader by her regional/international colleagues particularly because she speaks from a youth perspective and voices her concerns about the impacts of Climate change; the need for low carbon development while balancing out what Samoa needs to grow as a country and how it impacts the Pacific region and the lives of children.
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