Anuna De Wever

Anuna De Wever
De Wever protesting in Brussels in January 2019
Born	(2001-06-16) 16 June 2001 (age 23)[1] Mortsel, Belgium
Nationality	Belgian
Known for	School strike for the climate

Anuna De Wever Van Der Heyden (born 16 June 2001)^[1] is a Belgian climate activist and was one of the leading figures in the School strike for climate movement in Belgium.

Early life and activism

De Wever was born in Mortsel, Belgium. With Kyra Gantois and Adélaïde Charlier, De Wever became one of the leading figures in the School strike for climate movement in Belgium.^[2] As a result, from February to May 2019 they had a weekly column in the magazine HUMO.

In aftermath of the school strikes in Belgium centre-right Flemish minister for the environment Joke Schauvliege was obliged to resign after falsely claiming that the Belgian State Security Service had information indicating that the climate strike was a political front organisation.^[3][4]

Personal differences led to a fissure within the Belgian Youth for Climate movement, with the departure of co-founder Kyra Gantois in August 2019.^[5]

De Wever made an appearance at the 2019 Pukkelpop music festival attempting to engage the audience to call attention to the climate issues. This call angered some festival goers who harassed their group, hurled bottles of urine at them, and followed them back to their campsite, uttered death threats and destroyed their tent, forcing security to intervene.^[6] Because the attackers had been carrying a variant of the Flag of Flanders favoured by far-right elements of the Flemish Movement, the organizers banned such flags from the event, confiscating 20.^[7][8][9]

In October 2019, De Wever was among the youngest climate activists to set sail on the Regina Maris for a low-carbon trans-Atlantic journey to the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Santiago, Chile.^[10]

In February 2020, after returning from South America, they took an internship with the Greens–European Free Alliance in the European Parliament, without becoming a member of the party.^[11]

De Wever identifies as gender non-binary and uses she/he/they pronouns.^[12][13][14]

She received criticism for calling Gert Verhulst an "old white straight male", which prompted reply from the Belgian Secretary of State, Asylum and Immigration Sammy Mahdi who said: "Can we stop reducing a person's opinion to age, skin color, sexual orientation and gender?".^[15]

Awards

• In May 2019, De Wever and Kyra Gantois jointly received the Ark Prize of the Free Word.^[16]
• In September 2019, De Wever and Adélaïde Charlier received Amnesty International Belgium's Ambassador of Conscience Award on behalf of Youth for Climate.^[17]

References

1. Cavallone, Elena. "Anuna: the young Belgian who fights for the climate". Euronews. Retrieved 2020-05-23.; @ClementFavaron (2020-06-16). "Happy birthday to the amazing and inspiring @AnunaDe" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
2. "Belgium climate protests". BBC News. 2019-01-31. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
3. Daniel Boffey (2019-02-05). "Belgian minister resigns over school-strike conspiracy claims". The Guardian.
4. "Belgian minister Schauvliege resigns over 'school protest plot'". BBC News. 2019-02-06. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
5. Eline Bergmans (2019-08-26). "'Het boterde al maanden niet meer tussen Anuna en mij'". De Standaard.
6. "Anuna De Wever harassed and threatened with death at Pukkelpop". The Brussels Times. 2019-08-16.
7. Amber Janssens; Rik Arnoudt (2019-08-16). "Pukkelpop onderzoekt incident op camping na klimaatactie met Anuna De Wever". VRT Nieuws.
8. Michaël Torfs (2019-08-17). "Climate activist Anuna De Wever targeted in Pukkelpop incident, "black" Flemish lion flags seized". VRT Nieuws.
9. "Pukkelpop verwijdert Vlaamse vlaggen nadat Anuna De Wever werd belaagd". Knack. 2019-08-16.
10. Jennifer Rankin (2019-10-02). "Activists set sail across the Atlantic to Chile to demand curbs on flying". The Guardian.
11. "Anuna De Wever loopt stage bij Europese groenen: "Het is de link tussen het straatprotest en de seat at the table"". Het Laatste Nieuws.
12. Hess, Liam (2020-11-14). "Meet the 19-Year-Old Belgian Activist Taking a Global Outlook on the Climate Crisis". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-11-17.
13. "A Huge Climate Change Movement Led By Teenage Girls Is Sweeping Europe. And It's Coming To The US Next". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
14. "Anuna De Wever (@anuna_dewever)". Instagram. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
15. "Anuna De Wever krijgt wind van voren nadat ze Gert Verhulst "oude witte hetero man" noemt". Het Laatste Nieuws (in Dutch). 2021-09-19. Retrieved 2023-11-06.
16. "Anuna De Wever en Kyra Gantois ontvangen Arkprijs". Het Nieuwsblad. 2019-05-30.
17. "The voices of Brussels' Global Climate strike". The Brussels Times. 2019-09-23.