Belen Key Club hosts Miami Youth Sustainability Summit
On March 25, over 100 students from Miami-Dade county schools joined the Key Club chapter at Belen Jesuit for a youth summit on empowerment involving issues of climate change and economic development.
“Our young men benefited greatly from the insight and discussion which was shared at the Miami Youth Sustainability Summit,” said Mr. Jose E. Roca, Principal. “We were happy to welcome to our campus students from other schools throughout our county and challenge them to put what they discussed at this summit into action.”
The conference was organized to address the issues of climate change, financial literacy, poverty, and energy. The Keynote speaker was Mayor of Miami Beach Philip Levine. “I was honored to speak to the students about climate change and sea level rising,” said Mayor Levine.
Other speakers included the Mayor of South Miami, Philip K. Stoddard who spoke about solar power and how the youth must lead the charge to get our city to become sustainable. Grey Hamra, Climate Solutionist at Citizen’s Climate Lobby also added to the conversation about the importance of sustainability.
The MYSS was formed after a call to action by Pope Francis in his encyclical. It outlined the need to take action in our community especially on climate change. This inspired organizer, junior Angel Aguilar, to begin this initiative and try to change his own community. He then gathered a team of friends and peers to make this call to action a reality.
“The team at Belen Jesuit assembled a group of very passionate and knowledgeable high school students from all around,” said Hamra. “I was very impressed with some of the conversations I had with some of these young people.”
The summit finished with a call to action and a teaming up of over 30 schools to plan for the future. Students interested in joining the cause should contact Aguilar.
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.