School Strike for Climate Action

On Friday at 11am I went up to the Clock Tower where the children who were striking from school were gathering to march to demand action on climate change.
There was quite a sizable crowd there:

A lad called Sam gave a speech to explain why they were all there, and then they marched round the town, chanting and waving their placards, led by a girl with a megaphone at the front of the march. Hay is not very big, so they ended up going up and down Castle Street about 4 times! As they went, they were collecting signatures on a petition to present to the Mayor, to ask Hay Town Council to declare a Climate Emergency.
At the War Memorial, they stopped again for more speeches. These kids had obviously done their research, and put a lot of thought into the speeches they gave. I think the youngest speaker was 12, Rosa, who was also the one who started organising the march in Hay (other marches were going on at he same time across Europe, as well as a few scattered ones around the rest of the world, including one in Mali!). Trudy the Mayor also said a few words - she was delighted that the children were getting involved in such an important issue.
Then there was more marching, finishing up at the Globe.
Here Rosa stood up to answer questions from the audience, about how they had organised themselves (word of mouth spreading between siblings and schools, mostly). Mayor Trudy said a few more words as she accepted the petition ("343 signatures...344....") and she USED THE MICROPHONE!:).
She said that she would take it to the next Council meeting on the first Monday of March to be voted on. She also said that she had to admit that the Town Council were divided about 50/50 on whether the children should be in school or not, but that she had been very happy when Rosa first approached her.
The Town Council has been trying various initiatives to get young people interested in the work of the council for some time, and here was a group of enthusiastic young people asking to get involved!
I wasn't feeling very well, so I left early, but when I went, the kids were finding out which schools were represented in the room and organising so that they all kept in touch. Schools included Fairfield High School, Lady Hawkins School from Kington, Clifford Primary School, and Michaelchurch Escley Primary School.
I spoke to one mum whose older child was attending the march in Hereford, where he goes to Sixth Form College, and whose younger son was in Hay. Then there was Tiger, who is home schooled, so his mum said he represented a whole school on his own! He stepped up as they were organising a committee, to represent home educated children in the area.
The boys from Fairfield (one of whom had sprayed his hair green for the event), were well aware that the school did not support them attending - the school had sent an email to all the parents saying that any child going to the march would be marked as having an unauthorised absence. This was in contrast to Lady Hawkins School, which was supportive of pupils who wanted to attend. One parent in the room wanted to know how children in Kington could be involved in future actions, as there are two big schools there.

I don't think these kids are going to stop at one march - the Climate Action movement is organising future events, and I think they're going to be involved in local initiatives. There was a lot of positive energy in the room.

Later I went into Londis, where one of the new town councillors who had been at the march was telling the staff there all about it. She was very enthusiastic about getting the children involved in local action.

There's also been a lot of discussion about the march on the Hay Community page on Facebook, both positive and negative.