The Climate Activist, Mugisha Anion Givens.

Personally, when I started out with my activism I was inspired by other activists around me. When I heard their stories and their opinions it helped to encourage me to take action. Every activist has their story. It is their stories that influence other people to take action. Due to this, I have interviewed some activists and I’m hoping that their stories inspire you to start your story.

Anion is an incredible activists who started his activism 4 years ago. Unfortunately he never had a phone to share the inspirational work that he does. This work includes helping the homeless, demanding climate action, making great changes, spreading positivity and much more. We need more people and activists like Anion to help make the world a better place.

Inspiration is very important in life; It is something that encourages you to keep going and to do something special. When asked what inspires him, Anion said, “I believe the stupidest thing we humans believe is that someone else will save us. Yet that someone is me and you, if we take action today.” This amazing point shows us that we can’t wait for somebody else to save us or to change the world. If everyone waited for someone else, then no one would do anything. We have to be the heroes of our own story and we have to take action to save our world, ourselves and each other.

Protests and strikes can be a major part of activism and there can be many positive outcomes from it, as Anion points out, these are “spreading awareness,” which protests do. If you saw a crowd of passionate people with creative posters and catchy chants standing unified together, would you be amazed? Would you be inspired? I would. He also mentions that “seeing powerful and high ranked people calling [the protests] inspirational,” is inspirational. It means that the protests are catching the attention of those that have the most power to create the most change. It means that the protests are working!

There are many feelings wrapped up with climate activism, from pride to fear, positivity to negativity. For each person it can be different and at different times feelings can change. The main feelings that Anion feels when taking action is that he has been blind sided by those in power who have dumped this terrible crisis on us. He also feels that we have “taken the earth for granted.” And we have. Think of everything everyone takes for granted in life: time, health, happiness, resources, the earth, the sun, food, shelter etc. When things are taken for granted they are given less respect and our earth is given very little respect (which has led to climate change). One of Anions answers really made me think about things, and this was, “we all say we should make earth better for our coming generations. How about leaving better generations for earth by teaching them the right paths about nature.” I couldn’t agree more.

In life people learn a lot from each other and each others experiences. When Anion was asked about an important thing he learnt through activism he said “I have learnt that in order to bring change, we don’t need perfect. We need many people doing the same thing imperfectly for a better cause.” In the world of activism things won’t be perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist because if things were perfect then we wouldn’t be fighting to make the world a better place.

When asked “was it hard to start activism?” Anion said that as long as he is doing something he is passionate about “all hardships direct [him] to success and a big story.” If that isn’t inspiring I don’t know what is.

If you’re looking for advice on activism, Anion has some very wise tips and advice to share. He recommends that people “seek justice not publicity, passion not recognition, kindness not ignorance.” He also adds that he believes “that heroes are not those who go public for one single post on paper. But those who win battles we know nothing about. I believe more in taking action on field and less time on paper. I recommend activists to be more practical than being verbally and digitally staged.”

Thank you Anion for your amazing answers and insights.

To follow Anion and the incredible work he does you can follow him on instagram @24anion.