The Global Indigenous Youth Perspectives panel webinar is for Indigenous youth from around the world to share the challenges which Indigenous communities in their region face and the potential solutions. During this webinar, panelists also share their own experiences as well as offering reflections from their time at the ECOSOC Youth Forum in 2024.
Srijain (he/him) was born in Kathmandu, Nepal and moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick at seven years old. Growing up in both Nepal and Canada imbued him with a passion to help actualize equitable change for communities in both developed and developing regions.
Srijain graduated from Western University in 2021 with a Masters in Global Health Systems, where his eyes were opened to the power of policy-oriented solutions for systems-level change.
He is excited to connect with, learn from, and empower other youth delegates, policy-makers, government representatives, and relevant stakeholders at the 2024 ECOSOC Youth Forum.
Srijain is dedicated to helping youth around the world become more engaged in consequential development processes and decision-making.
Through this experience, he strives to help develop a global community of youth change-makers who collaborate and freely share their knowledge, insights, and solutions to work towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Megan Dicker is an Inuk youth from Nain, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada. She is a social change enthusiast and a climate advocate, speaking on national and international platforms about protecting the land and the importance of having Indigenous youth in decision-making spaces. Megan has led Inuit youth leadership programs in northern Labrador in the Tongait Mountains, connecting youth to their ancestral homelands for cultural and leadership activities. She is currently studying Sociology at Carleton University and starting part-time work with the Yellowhead Institute.
Charitie Ropati (Yup’ik & Samoan) is a 22 year old education and environmental activist who worked to implement an accurate and inclusive sub-curriculum of Indigenous peoples in Western pedagogy in Alaska. She is a researcher, scientist and engineer who studies the intersections of plant ecology, permafrost, and cultural resilience in coastal Native communities at Columbia University in the Griffin Lab and is an Indigenous woman in STEM. She also works on the Co-Production of knowledge and is a member of the Earth Network at the Columbia Climate School. She is also a recent graduate from the school engineering at Columbia. She was awarded Champion for Change by the Center for Native American Youth for her work in education and she has been been featured and nationally recognized for her advocacy in Teen Vogue, The Malala Fund, The Guardian and elsewhere.
Asami Segundo is an indigenous youth leader from the Ikalahan-Kalanguya ICCA in Northern Philippines. She is a licensed forester and a skilled Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialist and played a crucial role in supporting participatory community mapping of indigenous territories and ICCAs (Indigenous and Community Conservation Areas) in her province. Her work includes conducting capacity building for indigenous communities in forest management and community development. Currently, she serves as the regional coordinator for the ICCA Consortium Southeast Asia. She is also a founding member of the International Indigenous Youth Forum on Climate Change, working to ensure that indigenous youths’ perspectives are included in global discussions on climate policy particularly in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.