We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hikaru Hayakawa a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hikaru, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Climate Cardinals is a youth-led nonprofit organization that works to make climate education more accessible to non-English-speakers. We began during the pandemic with a $500 grant, and over the past three years, we have grown into the largest youth-led climate organization in the world. Together, our team has translated 1.5 million words of climate information. We have also collaborated with Google, Translators Without Borders, Yale Climate Connections, and the Climate Mental Health Network, among others.

Our mission is motivated by the need to democratize the climate movement. The people most impacted by climate change have the least amount of access to climate information. Our founder, Sophia Kianni, decided to establish the Climate Cardinals after making an alarming observation when visiting her family in Iran. Even though the climate crisis is disproportionately affecting the Middle East, her relatives did not have the language to describe the climate crisis. Sophia began to translate climate information for her family from English into Farsi, and her experience pushed her to establish Climate Cardinals.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa, and I am the Partnerships Director at Climate Cardinals. I manage our translation program and I handle translation requests for partners, such as Yale Climate Connections and the Climate Mental Health Network. I have also worked to expand our translation capacity through partnerships with Google and Translators Without Border.

I joined Climate Cardinals three years ago as a recent high school graduate. At the time, I had just returned from studying abroad on a full scholarship in North Macedonia. In Skopje, the capital city of North Macedonia, I witnessed how youth pushed their government to address the city’s pollution crisis. I saw my peers pouring over climate information in English, and as such, when I returned home to the United States, I was inspired to take action on the climate crisis and I also witnessed how important information accessibility is to pushing for change. Even though Climate Cardinals’ senior leadership comprised of only recent high school graduates when we first began, we have been able to learn and persevere, culminating in our organization’s translation of over 1.5 million words and our recent partnership with Google to deploy their AI-powered Translation Hub to accelerate our volunteers’ work.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Our team comprises of university and high-school-aged volunteers. The average age of a Climate Cardinals volunteer is 16. The majority of our team meets with partners, creates social media content, and translates climates materials on top of their other obligations. We have always been busy with school life, spending time with friends and family, internships, and work, and yet together we have been able to sustain a movement. We are a rag-tag group of youth, committed to intergenerational partnerships and information accessibility, who have been able to try and make a difference, reaching millions of people in 100+ languages with climate information in the process.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to unlearn is that we as youth were not yet prepared to make a difference. When I first joined Climate Cardinals, I had experience organizing community events and youth-public sector partnerships. However, I had little experience initiating partnerships with professional organizations on an organization-to-organization level, and consequently, I felt insecure about my ability to develop long-lasting and effective partnerships. I had to learn a lot in the day-to-day work of Climate Cardinals. I am lucky because I have had many role models in our team, such as founder Sophia Kianni, who have brought our mission and movement to the UN and other fora.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.climatecardinals.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/climatecardinals/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/climatecardinals/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/climate-cardinals
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/climatecardinals?s=21

Image Credits
Anna Zhong, Emma Somos