The World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation co-organize Youth for Eco-Justice, starting parallel to the UN Climate Change Summit in Durban, South Africa, at the end of November. In a series of blog posts, the participants are introducing themselves.

Name: Majd Qumsieh

Age: 22 years old
Function: English Literature graduate. I’m currently a volunteer in the International Middle East Media Center in Beit Sahour, and in the Environmental Educational Center in Beit Jala.
Country of origin: Beit Sahour, Palestine
Church of origin: Greek Orthodox

What is important for my life?

Well, I won’t deny that I had plans since childhood that I wanted them to be achieved throughout my life journey, but in fact, this life that we live in force us to find alternatives that comply with the reality. I’m a person who wishes to be a singer, actor, and psychoanalyst. I believe that the most important thing for my life now is being in a good health, psychologically and physically. This is because, I have struggled through so much during my life journey and I found that the only obstacles that prevent humans from achieving peace of mind, love, harmony, and good living, are those negative stereotypical thoughts that we keep processing in our minds. Getting rid of these obstacles, however, would help me to achieve peace of mind and what I really want to be. I am now working on that and hopefully, within a short time, I’ll be a new person who will benefit his planet Earth with the positive thoughts, and bring joy and happiness to his surroundings.

My wishes for the negotiations on Climate Change in Durban:

I am excited for our meeting in Durban for the reason that we all are going to negotiate many really important issues that most people ignore. I wish that during my stay in Durban, I would be exposed to topics concerning peace, justice, ecology, spirituality, politics and ecology and many other subjects that are really crucial and would benefit me more than I expect. I also wish that we all could exchange our cultural and ecological experiences, so that we might widen our knowledge and perception about the world we share.

What would you like to do so that your church/country becomes more environmentally just?

I first want to give you some information about my country. I live in Palestine, which is a country that has been occupied from Israel since 1948. I have been living under occupation since the day I was born and I’ve not seen peace nor know freedom in my whole life. We [Palestinians] live in fear most of the time when we’re traveling inside our own country. There are many borders and check points that we have to stop in, in order to be inspected from the Israeli Soldiers. Many Palestinians faced house demolishing and uprooting of trees, especially Olive trees. I don’t want to mention all the oppression policies that Israel had done and still doing to the Palestinians and their environment. However, I may say that we so much suffer from air and water pollution here. Thus, regardless of what we face from Israel, we practice many wrong actions towards our environment as well. Accordingly, I think when I come back from Durban; I’ll be able to contact the Local Youth Council in my town in order to coordinate awareness campaigns to Youth, for they are the essence change for our Environment’s future. In addition, I would like to do a presentation on what I’ll learn and experience in Durban, and then contact media in our country to broadcast these information and experiences on a more national and international level.