Abby
Lifeguard/Student,
Gold Coast, QLD
Zubaida Alrubai
Teacher, Blacktown, NSW
Published 5th October 2021
I work as a schoolteacher in Western Sydney. Here, teaching kids when the weather is getting hotter by degrees is difficult.
Temperatures can get to 47 degrees or 48 degrees [celsius] in summer. There has been a change, even in the years I have been teaching. And the heat affects the kids’ learning because of how hot it can be in the classroom.
As an educator, the future of children is always at the forefront. Not just their education, but their health and liveability.
"I care because as a teacher, I want the next generation that we raise to have a future that is clean."
Zubaida Alrubai
Teacher, Blacktown, NSW
We have extreme weather plans at school.
We make sure students are properly hydrated. We make sure they are in the shade during recess and lunch. They are the steps we can take on an individual level, but we need more.
That’s why I’m advocating for cleaner, more affordable energy. We need to get to a point where no-one is suffering from extreme heat and we have policies on a local and federal level to help deal with the reality of climate change.
It’s such a big movement in the Western Sydney region because we are suffering more than Sydney’s east coast.
We don’t have solutions like, “Oh we’ll go down to the beach to cool off.”
The social and economic issues of Western Sydney create unique needs — the need for clean energy and also affordable energy.
Locally, we want to see changes like solar gardens, community hubs so people can get their electricity bills checked and language-appropriate services. At the bigger level we need to cut emissions and realise climate action is a necessity.
Zubaida is part of the Voices For Power project, bringing diverse cultural, religious and community leaders together to build collective power and organise for clean and affordable energy solutions for our communities.
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