Bambou's poem "good enough to go global"

Bambou Chiepas is an 11-year old student at Bali Sunrise school. In December, 2008 she and her classmates visited the UNFCCC COP13 climate change negotiations held in Bali, Indonesia. After her experience, she wrote this poem:

It's haunting me
A crowd of he's and she's
I'm not a hero
I'm not even a big show
Every time I look
Cameras are flashing me in the eye.

It would surprise them if they knew
I was only a little girl
who is scared the world will die

“Bambou’s teacher emailed me her poem. I immediately showed it to members of the international youth delegation, thinking that Bambou perhaps should read them aloud as part of the youth speech at the high-level plenary at COP13,” says David Noble. The youth delegation had five short minutes to speak to the world. You can imagine that, with so little time, they would choose their words very carefully. They chose to conclude their speech with Bambou’s poem.

Her voice was the only 11-year old voice that the world heard, and her words were perhaps the most powerful words that were spoken.

We later asked Bambou permission to present her poem at talks and other outreach efforts. She thought that would be great. “I didn’t know that my poem would be good enough to go global,” she responded. It sure is, Bambou, it sure is.

Here is the full youth speech to the closing plenary, including Bambou's poem.