HILDA BERGANZA

My love for Earth started at a young age. When I was seven years old my class and I took a pretend trip to Kenya. We watched videos on the Safari, learned about the animals that lived in Kenya and understood how everything on the planet is connected. I remember sitting there watching one of the videos and falling in love with Earth. Not only the beauty of Earth but the ecosystems that make up our planet. My breath was taken away.

Years later, I found myself at the First Annual Global Climate Restoration Forum at the United Nations in New York City hosted by the Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR), a non-profit organization on a mission to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere back to pre-industrial levels of less than 300ppm by the year 2050. I sat in the audience, watched presentations on the melting ice caps of the North and South poles. I listened to stories of the impact climate change has had on minority groups, women, and third world countries. I so desired to be involved in a place like F4CR, that could make a positive impact on the planet. I was blessed to join F4CR in November 2020 as their Youth Program Director and Project Manager. My job and mission is to empower and support youth and young adults at a global scale in their climate restoration activism journey. I'm now in the midst of developing a curriculum on climate restoration with a team at F4CR for high school aged students. It is my goal to teach others about climate restoration, the importance of restoration working side by side with mitigation and adaptation climate actions and support the actions that arise from those conversations.

When my time here on Earth is complete, I want to go knowing that I did my part in leaving this Earth exactly the way I found it or better.