Virtual Visiting Speaker: Mya-Rose Craig

As part of the Christ’s Hospital Visiting Speaker Programme 2021, we welcomed Mya-Rose Craig, ‘Birdgirl’, on 19 January, for a virtual talk on Teams about the importance of diversity in access to nature.

Mya-Rose Craig is an ornithologist, campaigner and the youngest person in Britain to be awarded an honorary doctorate in science (she finished her A levels last summer). She is also the founder of ‘Black 2 Nature’ an organisation promoting access to nature for young people from minority ethnic backgrounds in Britain.

Here is a review of the talk, written by Deputy Grecian (Year 12) Max:

Lent term’s talk, hosted by Mya-Rose Craig, better known as Birdgirl, was all about her experiences in conservation, activism and allowing all races to experience nature. Her organisation, Black2Nature, aims to get people of colour outside, which can help improve mental health, stress, concentration and physical health. She spoke about how, on the first course, the first night was a disaster, nobody showing any interest in the activities and outdoors. And how she learnt that she had been speaking from a position of huge privilege. That you need to meet people where they are, by relating with them and their situation before taking them out of their comfort zone.

She later talked about speaking next to Greta Thunberg and when she took part in School Strike for Climate on the Arctic, explaining that when she began her blog at age 12, she had never expected that she would take all these wonderful actions before the age of only 18. Her advice to students was to keep talking to others about what you care about and issues which need to be solved, because there will always be people who are interested and want to listen, even if it takes a while to find them.